Class 
Book^ 




^ 



CDRyriglit^! 



ccesmam deposed 




Fenwicke L. Holme? 



The LAW of MIND 
in ACTION 



Daily Lessons and Treatments 
in Mental and Spiritual Science 

by 

FENWICKE L. HOLMES 

Author of "BeiDg and Becoming," the "Unfailing Formula," 

"How to Realize the Presence," etc; Associate Editor of the 

"Uplift"; Founder (with E. S. Holmes) of The Southern 

California Metaphysical Institute. 




NEW YORK 

ROBERT M. McBRIDE gf CO. 

1919 



Copyright, 1919 
BY 

FENWICKE LINDSAY HOLMES 






Printed in the United States of America. 



JUN -4 1919 



PUBLISHED MAY, 1919. 



©CIA51 5752 



CONTENTS 



Metaphysical Institute Realization 

Introduction. 

Method of Reading and Study . 



Page 
1 
2 
6 



PART I. 
Lesson 

I. — Metaphysics, What It Is and Does . . 9 

II. — The One Law We Need to Know ... IS 

III. — How to Use the Law — The Silence . . 23 

IV.— Spirit 29 

V. — Creative Mind in the Individual. ... 32 

VI. — Creative Mind in the Universal. . . 40 

VII. — Man — Master on the Planet. ... 47 

VIII. — Matter, or Thought in Form. ... 53 

IX. — The Creative Word 64 

X. — The Outer and the Inner Universe. . . 71 

XI. — The Infinite Self 74 

XII. — The Law of Attraction and Appropriation. 78 

XIII. — 'Choosing the Law You Will Live Under . 81 

XIV. — Feeling and Emotions 83 

XV. — The Instinct to Create 88 

XVI. — Our Immaculate Conceptions .... 91 

XVII. — Intensified Consciousness. .... 96 

X VIII.— Is Evil a Power? 102 

XIX.— The Thing I Fear 113 

XX.— Nothing Matters 121 

XXI. — Courage Regained 125 

XXII. — Creative Imagination 131 

XXIIL— One-Pointedness 138 



Page 

XXIV. — Faith, An Attitude of Mind 142 

XXV.— Mental Poise. 150 

XXVI.— The Will to Win 155 

XXVII. — Creating Atmospheres and Prosperity. 158 

XXVIIL— The Personal Spirit 166 

XXIX. — Intuition and Ideation 172 

XXX. — Ultimate Reality and the Fatherhood 

of God 179 

XXXI. — The Supreme Affirmation 186 



PART II. 
TREATMENTS OR REALIZATIONS. 

Lesson 

I.— The Use of Formulas 193 

II. — How to Help Others 198 

III.— Whom to Treat 200 

IV. — How Long to Treat 204 

V. — What Kind of Cases to Be Treated. . . 206 

My Good Night Prayer 225 



VI 



Metaphysical Institute Realization. 

GOD is Creative Spirit, everywhere present, eter- 
nally here. In Him is all life, intelligence, 
goodness, holiness and truth. He knows no want. 
He suffers no pain. He is unlimited in time, space 
and circumstance. 

Man, child of God, is divine spirit, shares His re- 
sources, lives, moves and has his being in God as an 
infinite sea. "There is one God and Father of all, 
who is over all, through all, and in all." 

As His child, therefore, I am pure spirit, free from 
ills of body, mind and soul. In pure spirit I live, 
move and have my being. I am perfect, even as 
my Father in heaven is perfect. The breath which 
I breathe, is the breath of the Spirit. The food which 
I eat is the gift of the Spirit and it fills me with the 
strength of the Spirit. The consciousness of the 
Perfect Spirit is mine, and I know it and feel it 
flowing through my whole being, bringing with it 
strength, power, and perfect peace. The Spirit of 
the Lord is upon me, and I feel His presence all around 
me, in me, and through me. I am free from all 
sickness, worry and fear. Perfect love casts out all 
fear from me and I am free. Health, hope, peace, life, 
love, truth, and plenty are mine. These I claim from 
God. These in the name of Christ I Now receive. I 
render thanks for the perfect gift 

1 



INTRODUCTION. 



THERE is a law of healing" so plain that even 
a child can understand it, so fundamental that 
the ablest mind has never yet thought through all 
the facts and phenomena of life that rest upon it. 
It is the purpose of this book to make this law plain » 
The greatest power in the world is the power oi 
thought, for it is Creative Mind in action. Nothing 
exists that did not first exist in thought from the 
first sun that blazed only in the Mind of the Creator, 
to the last doll-dress fashioned by a childish hand. 
Science supports the fact that the first movement in 
nature can have come only from the application of 
an immaterial force or Will to the primary etheric 
particles otherwise in a perfect state of equilibrium. 
It must leave to metaphysics not only an explanation 
of the Will that moves but also the substance that 
is moved. This, then, it is the province of this book 
to show with all that it entails. Since an act of Will 
is an act of mind, we concern ourselves with the 
activity of a Creative Mind. Again since Mind acts 
creatively, there is a way in which it acts. We must 
also, therefore, teach the way. It is to teach this way 
that the Bible was written, that Jesus lived and taught. 
This way has been known for many centuries but 
has always been taught in terms of the understanding 

2 



Metaphysics — What It Is and Does. 

of the day in which the teacher lived. The Great 
Metaphysician taught largely in parables and oriental 
figures of speech. But He taught "the Way" and 
his followers were called the People of the Way. 

The "way" is the law and today the understanding 
of it as law enables us to put, in a few simple state- 
ments which all can understand, the principles of the 
law, which, if learned and used, will enable anyone 
to control the conditions of his body, mind, and en- 
vironment. Anyone can learn how to use it. 

It is clear to us that it is natural to use the power 
of Mind and that the greatest happiness results from 
its exercise. 

Mind is so constituted that it must act, it must 
express that which it feels itself to be. All nature 
points to the tact that wherever action ceases, death, 
or negation, begins. Mind is the very spirit of the 
life in nature and therefore is eternally active. Yet 
it is also infinite repose for it is that out of which 
all activity springs and by which it is sustained. In 
this book we are not dealing so much with that great 
potential of activity whicn we call being as with the 
law by which it acts. We are concerned not so much 
with the contemplation of the Life, Love, and Wis- 
dom, which is God or Being, as with the way Spirit 
manifests. How life becomes health, how love be- 
comes happiness, and how wisdom becomes wealth, 
we desire to know. As these are all qualities of mind, 
and in their pure state ate undifferentiated into form, 
we realize that when they begin to pass out into indi- 



4 The Law of Mind in Action. 

vidual expression, it must be by the process of think- 
ing. That is the only way mind can act. So that 
the Creative process is simply Mind in action, or 
Mind thinking its Life, Love and Wisdom into form. 
Mind in action is always creative, but it is also thought. 
Thought acts in Mind to create^ Or mind first pro- 
duces thought and then reacts to it to become that 
which it has thought. This is the whole law of 
creation. Mind creates what it thinks./ The many 
forms pass out of the one Mind 2 but^each. form has 
a corresponding thought which produces and sus- 
tains it.- 

Mind in action is, therefore, also the law. We call 
it the law of cause and effect. Law is the principle 
on which mind works. ^ For every primary cause is 
in the mind and the effect is simply the form which 
thought has taken. Thought is first cause, in any 
created series, and form is effect./ 

Thought acts upon mind to produce things. Since 
things are made out of 'mind, they are simply thought 
in form, but they maintain form and reality only" so 
long as they are sustained by the thought^,—* .. 

The Law, therefore, may be defined as mind in 
action producing the many out of the one by the 
power of thought, and this book is written to furnish 
a daily meditation on the highest of all themes — man's 
control of his own body, happiness, circumstances arrd 
environment by the thoughts which he thinks.- The 
knowledge and use of thought and the law of mind 
in action is the knowledge of which Jesus spoke when 



Metaphysics — What It Is and Does. 5 

he said, "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall 
make you free." May these pages free many to the 
glorious wisdom of Mind in Action. 

Fenwicke L. Holmes. 
December jo, igi8. 



METHOD OF READING AND STUDY OF 
"THE LAW OF MIND IN ACTION." 

THIS book is written to teach the one simple law 
of mind — The Law — which anyone can under- 
stand and use, and which if used will give freedom, 
joy, health, supply, and peace to the one who uses it. 
This is a big claim, but it is supported by the Bible, 
by the Great Teacher, and by the experience of thou- 
sands now living. Everything in this book is based 
on the Law outlined in Lesson II and the student is 
requested to read each chapter and then ask himself, 
"How does this illustrate the Law? Is it true to the 
Law ?" Always do this and you will . soon know the 
Law for yourself and can use it and teach it to others. 
Thus you will become a master of life. 

This book is designed also to stimulate your own 
thinking and investigation. It is not expected that 
the beginner will grasp the full significance of all the 
principles at one reading. It is for meditation. Read 
and Think. Make a study of life, books, news- 
papers, men and events with reference to this Law 
and you will find thousands of illustrations of it. 
When you can reduce all the phenomena of life to 
this Law, you have become a great philosopher. 

If you are entering on this kind of study for the 
first time, do not allow offense at some one statement 



Metaphysics— What It Is and Does, 7 

to discourage your further reading. Perhaps you 
have not yet understood it in the way it was meant. 
Perhaps it is so new a view that you do not want to 
believe it yet. Go on reading and studying and make 
your own decisions. As Paul says, "Prove all things, 
hold fast that which is good." Even if you should 
never accept it all, you can still get help, and find 
health and peace. ** 

A close study of these lessons will reveal to the 
student that they are not brought together by a chance 
arrangement but are consecutive. First, we have the 
meaning and definition of metaphysics and the Law. 
Then the general principles of its application are 
given. These in turn are followed by the philosophy 
of metaphysics. Fourth, we have an explanation of 
the reason for certain mental attitudes and how the 
Law applies ; this is a study in cause and effect. Fifth, 
we consider the Law as related to the Absolute and 
the Personal Spirit. Sixth, and finally, we devote 
our attention to specific methods and treatments. 
These should all be studied systematically. 

Too much emphasis cannot be laid on the necessity 
of systematic study. A mere smattering of meta- 
physics will never satisfy the demands of the day nor 
the inner requirements of the Law. We have a great 
body of truth. The world is anxious to know why 
we believe and teach what we do. No science in the 
world, no philosophy is more complete or compre- 
hensive. We must learn it so completely that we can 



8 • The Law of Mind in Action. 

teach it with the utmost simplicity as Jesus taught it. 
Do not therefore go jumping about in your study. 
A good principle of study is to read the book clear 
through once if you wish to get a general view of 
the principles so that you may know just about what 
goal you are driving toward; after that confine your- 
self each day to one lesson and know it. Think 
more than you read. Masterful study puts more be- 
tween the lines than it takes from the lines. This 
is to stimulate your own thinking. Thus you will 
become a master teacher of life. 

The word "treatment" as used in this book is a 
synonym for realization or perception. It is useless 
to quarrel with language. It is and there's an end 
on't. The word treatment has become sufficiently 
popularized to mean to the general public what the 
teacher of the absolute means by some other favorite 
term, and it is safe to predicate that this term will 
be supported by future as well as present usage. 

In time the student will arrive at that point of con- 
sciousness where he will not need the formulated 
treatment. He will then form his own statement. 
Ultimately he will be able to "speak the word only" 
and it will be done unto him even as he thinks. The 
advanced metaphysician heals entirely by the word ; 
he reaches the point where he actually does perceive 
the truth that is to make him free. 



LESSON I. 
METAPHYSICS— WHAT IT I 



'nD 



THE word metaphysics, as its composition indi- 
cates, denotes something above the physical, 
"meta," meaning "over," and "physics" referring to 
forms of matter. So that to work upon the meta- 
physical plane means to employ laws that transcend 
physical means or agencies. It is, then, to push our 
way back of the thing that we see, which we call "the 
manifestation," until we find the cause of the mani- 
festation. It is the search for the Ultimate Cause and 
the law by which the Spirit creates a world, and 
brings material objects and physical life into mani- 
festation. 

Our study of applied metaphysics is designed to 
make clear these facts : In the beginning there is 
only Mind or Spirit. Whatever is made, therefore, 
must be made out of Mind. Mind can act only by 
thinking; therefore it is thought that takes the sub- 
stance called mind and moulds it into form. God 
makes a world out of himself. As everything in the 
cosmos starts in thought and manifests in form, cre- 
ation is the process by which the activity takes place. 
We may call it evolution or we may call it law. By 
law we mean the method Spirit follows in making 
things. This is the law of cause and effect whether 



10 The Law of Mind in Action. 

it be in the making of a planet or a man ; the thought 
is the cause and the manifestation is the effect. Even 
the so-called laws of the physical universe are simply 
the activity of this one law in some form. 

What It Does. 

Metaphysics, therefore, teaches us how we may 
govern our bodies, our world, and our happiness by 
the thoughts we think ; for it declares that man repro- 
duces the creative method and that what is true in 
the macrocosm or universe is true in the microcosm 
or individual, that thoughts become things. And it 
claims that by acquiring the knowledge of the law, 
and by working in harmony with it, man can be freed 
from limitations of all kinds. 

Our subsequent studies will reveal that the creative 
mind in man, and the creative mind in the universe 
are not two, but rather essentially one. The value of 
this understanding is that we may use universal cre- 
ative forces to secure the good we desire, without 
feeling that we have to create. We do not make the 
law, we use it, and it does our work for us. 

All healing accordingly, is divine. "It is done unto 
us even as we will," it is not done by us. Human will 
originates its own ideas but Divine Mind creates. The 
healer is not the source, but the channel ; not the light, 
but the window; not the electricity, but the wire. He 
is the teacher who will guide to the truth until the 
patient learns the way for himself. 

So all metaphysical healing is based on the prin- 



w » 



Metaphysics — What It Is and Does. 11 

ciple, that the body of man and his affairs are created 
by the mind which can either build or destroy, and 
that this mind is controlled by thought. Jesus was 
the Supreme Metaphysician because He could speak 
the word of authority to mind so positively that when 
He said, "Rise and take up thy bed," the paralytic did 
as was commanded him to do. 

It is evident that Jesus used a law that is open to 
the use of everybody. The constitution of man has 
not changed nor his essential nature, and so today 
men are demonstrating this power. I count it as the 
greatest work that today engages the attention of 
mankind — not the mere healing, but the advancement 
of the knowledge of these things in a world of need. 

Metaphysics, a Science. 

For it is a knowledge, or as we say, a science or 
philosophy. And it takes a real mind to understand 
it. Metaphysics engages the mind. We must think, 
and rich and fruitful are the results of logical think- 
ing. By it we move back along the path of history 
and science and logical deduction into the realm of 
Original Causation. We find ourselves entering into 
the field where all is Spirit in the beginning of things. 
We see the Spirit or Cosmic Mind taking the initial 
step in the creation of the universe. We are at a 
period before Substance or matter is in existence so 
that we know that the All-Originating Mind could .' 
have but one mode of activity — that of thought. By 
the process of thought Spirit projects a substance as 



12 The Law of Mind in Action, 

universal as itself which we call ether. By Acting 
upon Ether the Creative Mind brings into being 
planetary systems, earth and all its myriad forms and 
life. 

To test this we may reverse the process of our 
thought and begin with science. We take so-called 
matter and analyze it into its constituent elements, to 
the molecule, then to the atom, then to the aeon, then 
to the electron, and finally to primary ether, which 
science declares to be the ultimate source of matter. 
Now science cannot tell whence came this ultimate 
substance, nor how it received its energy. That is 
the task of metaphysics and metaphysics meets the 
problem squarely by declaring energy to be the thought 
of the Creative Mind. 

The Underlying Unity. 

So that whatsoever way we approach our subject 
we find an underlying unity to all things — ether, from 
the material standpoint ; mind, from the mental. Back 
of all things then is the Divine Mind or Spirit through 
whose concept the world springs into existence. We 
thus find ourself living in an idealistic universe, a 
universe which in its essential nature is purely spir- 
itual and therefore subject to the Control of Thought 
Alone. This is the underlying unity which relates all 
parts to the great whole — man and nature to the 
Divine Mind which brought all into existence. It 
was the great achievement of Moses to discover this 
underlying unity, or rather to learn it from the Ancient 



Metaphysics — What It Is and Does. 13 

Egyptian priesthood and reveal it to the Israelitish 
people. It is the greatest fact or precept of the Old 
Testament, which led Jesus when asked which was 
the greatest commandment to quote these words, 
"Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God, the Lord is one." ^ 

It is the work of metaphysics to show that man can 
put himself into harmony with this One Originating 
Source and work in unison with the Creative Pur- 
pose, and thus be able to accomplish all things. 

Realization. 

I am now entered into the consideration of the 
greatest theme that ever engaged the intellect of man 
for I am making no less a study than the Way of God 
with men. I therefore claim from the Divine Intelli- 
gence that makes and sustains the universe, the nec- 
essary mental capacity and intuition to perceive the 
great truths of metaphysics. I hold that only the 
truth will appeal to me and that no error of false 
judgment will be able to enter my mind to stay there. 
No previous thought or prejudice shall be allowed to 
influence me against reason in my study of the new 
order. I dare to go all the way with truth for Truth 
is God and God is all. So far as I see the light, I 
will follow it, and I shall not think that the traditions 
of men are of more value than my own logical con- 
clusions. I commit my ways and my thoughts to 
God, I trust in the divine illumination which can 
come to my own soul and I venture out in faith on 
the new pathways of understanding. I will fear no 



14 The Law of Mind in Action, 

evil, for Thou art with me. I now claim the near 
and dear presence of Divine Love and Wisdom. I 
rejoice in the Heart of the World and in my share 
in the activities of the Divine Creative Mind. Thou, 
O Lord, art with me alway even unto the ends of the 
earth. I worship and bow down, I kneel before the 
Lord my God. I am at one with Infinite Life, Love, 
and Wisdom and I give thanks for the light that now 
begins to illumine my pathway. 



LESSON II. ^ ( 

THE ONE LAW WE NEED TO KNOW. 

THERE is one law supreme to this system of 
life. Sometimes we call it "the law of cause 
and effect." Sometimes we speak of it as the method 
by which spirit passes into manifestation. Psycholo- 
gists frequently speak of it as the law of suggestion. 
Every teacher of metaphysics spends his time either 
in giving his interpretation of it or in explaining some 
truth that is related to it. Our happiness and success 
in life are measured by the degree to which either 
consciously or unconsciously we are obedient to the 
requirements of this law. It is the law that we can- 
not break, but we can be broken by trying to break it. 
It is the law by which "as ye sow, ye also shall reap." 
Through it, "it shall be done unto you according to 
your faith." It explains why "as a man thinketh in 
his heart, so is he." It is the basis of the "law of 
correspondences." It is the activity of Creative Mind> 
neither good nor bad, by which we create our own 
heaven and our own hell. It is the secret of all trag- 
edy and all comedy. It is the touchstone to truth, 
and he who knows it and employs it wisely is the 
emancipated soul and a master on the path. Let the 
student therefore learn the following principles which 
constitute the law that through the knowledge he may 

15 



16 The Law of Mind in Action, 

obtain the mastery of fate and control the conditions 
of life and destiny ; for no less a power is in the 
hands of him who learns and wisely employs this law. 
All must use it because we live by it; but how few 
use it wisely. 

The Law. 

1. The first principle of this law is that of the uni- 
versal presence of intelligence ; that we live, move and 
have our being in a vast sea of life, both visible and 
invisible; that this intelligent life is not only around 
us but is in us ; even more, it not only is around and 
in us, but it is the substance as we41 of which all things 
(including our bodies) are composed. This statement 
is supported alike by revelation, as in the Bible; by 
science, as in psychology or chemistry ; and by phi- 
losophy, as in our lesson on Spirit. 

Before there was a visible universe which we call 
"Nature" there must of necessity have been an in- 
visible universe which we call Spirit or Power. The 
orderly way in which It arranged the visible universe 
which It created shows that It was and is a Wonderful 
Intelligence. 

Since Spirit was (and is) all, it had nothing else 
than itself out of which to make a world. It therefore 
had to fashion a substance for its own body — the uni- 
verse — out of itself, or Spirit. Since Spirit is Intelli- 
gence, of necessity the substance which it brought 
forth must share its nature. And all life must mani- 
fest the life of Spirit since it proceeds from it. All 
science is agreed that life has never been discovered 



The One Law We Need to Know. 17 

that did not come from antecedent life, so that we cam 
move back from the life of Nature to the life from 
which it is derived, or Nature's God. Accordingly 
Nature and the life in Nature are one and the same 
thing and we live in a universe which is literally alive. 

2. We see, therefore, that this Universal Intelligence 
is also creative. It is the power that makes things, 
and is the intelligence that moulds original substance 
and holds it in form. As in man the subjective or im- 
personal mind builds new life cells day by day and 
takes care of the growing life of the child and the 
renewing life of maturity, so in Nature, the Creative 
Mind is busy building ever more stately mansions for 
its dwelling place. New universes are being flung out 
across the vast abyss of space; new stars begin to 
gleam as they launch out on their ageless journey 
around some distant sun; the earth upon which we 
tread is growing daily through the addition of cosmic 
dust and daily changing in its internal structure ; new 
forms of life are appearing or old are altering; 
flowers are blooming into life to breathe their beauty 
on the breast of nature ; and we live in a world of 
life, ever-renewing, ever-changing, ever-evolving into 
higher expression of the exhaustless energy of 
Creative Mind. The second part of our law therefore 
calls attention to the fact that we not only live in a 
world of intelligence, but that this intelligence is 
constantly creating. "Behold I make all things new." 
In this is man's hope and his power to act. 

This life is the life of the Creative Spirit, Intel- 



18 The Law of Mind in Action. 

ligence, or Mind, and therefore we perceive that It 
emerges into form to enjoy its own Power-to-Live. 
When we think, it is Spirit thinking through us ; when 
we utter a truth it is Spirit putting out into expression 
a thought from its limitless Power-to-Think ; when we 
breathe it is Spirit breathing us. 

3. This creative intelligence acts upon the impress 
of the strongest impression, thought, or image, made 
upon it. 

When man emerges in consciousness out of this 
vast sea of life, as a wave runs upon the bosom of 
the ocean, he rises sufficiently high to enable him to 
perceive that there is an ocean. Thus Spirit fulfills a 
purpose in becoming man by enabling Itself, through 
becoming the particular, to perceive Itself in its 
AU-ness. Man is spirit come forth out of the form- 
less into form, out of the timeless into time, out of 
the limitless into certain limitations, and yet, as man, 
spirit never loses its power to draw upon its resources 
as Spirit. Therefore, we must recognize that all the 
power of the universe is back of the mind of man when 
he thinks. 

Then, too, we must recognize that there cannot be 
a will in the Universal Mind opposed to man, for if 
there were, then he could not draw from the creative 
mind and power what he wants except by chance. We 
therefore recognize that so far as we are concerned 
there is back of us a Universal Creative Mind which 
desires to become to us whatever we desire, that is 
whatever we think into it, and which has no purposes 



The One Law We Need to Know. 19 

of its own opposed to ours. As It creates a world by 
thinking a world, (for Mind can act only through 
thought) so it creates for man himself, whatever he 
desires, by acting as Creative Mind upon his thought. 
This Mind, therefore, is in this aspect purely im- 
personal and neutral (see Lesson VII). It has no 
purposes of its own as opposed to ours. It is creative 
activity, infinitely susceptible, responsive to our every 
thought (Lesson V) and is the power that brings into 
existence in form whatever we fashion in thought. 

We therefore perceive that whatever we think must 
make a greater or lesser impression on Creative Mind 
and that when we consciously use our knowledge we 
make an image of the thing we desire; then we present 
it to the Great Creative Intelligence which begins to 
act upon our suggestion to bring forth our good into 
visible form. The purpose of this book in the main is 
to show the various phases of the activity of this law, 
the law of Creative Activity, by which the creative 
mind brings into form whatever we present to it 
sufficiently forcefully in thought. 

4. But there is one other feature of the Law which 
must not be overlooked. This is. what we may term 
the personal side of Spirit's activity. While, as law, 
it acts in the manner we have just described; and 
while, so far as the individual will is concerned, it does 
not act contrary to our purposes, still it also acts as 
a law of tendency. It tends to the production of 
higher manifestations of itself in individual expression 
and form. It is seeking its own self-expression since 



1 

20 The Law of Mind in Action. 

there can be no other motive of creation at all. Its 
nature is life, love, and wisdom. This it seeks to man- 
ifest. Accordingly it stands back of man as the source 
of his life, love, and wisdom, and is ready to "teach us 
all things and guide us in the way of truth." It not 
only creates, therefore, according to the thought we 
impress upon it as law or Impersonal Mind, but It 
becomes the director of man's thought and life, when- 
ever we turn to it for guidance and direction in our 
affairs. (See Lessons XXVIII to XXXI.) 

This is in accordance with the three principles just 
outlined, for, as Infinite Wisdom, it takes the impress 
of our desire for Wisdom and brings that out into ex- 
pression just as it does life and form./We perceive this 
Intelligence therefore as the source of man's inspira- 
tions and intuitions. When we turn for guidance to It, 
It becomes our teacher and guide. When we turn to It 
for love, It becomes our Lover. The greatest achieve- 
ment of our own highest intelligence is therefore to 
be found in so harmonizing ourselves with this great 
Life, Love, and Wisdom that we may find It in us as a 
perennial spring, the water of life surging up eternally 
from the depth of our being. "Whosoever believes on 
this spirit of life, from within him shall flow springs 
of living water." 

(Make a study of all the facts you know in relation 
to this great law. Restate it in your own words. 
Learn it in some such form as this : 

1. I live in a universe of Intelligence in which 
everything is alive and infinitely responsive to thought, 



The One Law We Need to Know. 21 

since it takes its form out of the substance of Mind 
through the process of thinking. 

2. This Intelligence is the Creative Factor in all 
Nature and in the moulding of all thought into form. 

3. It creates according to its own thought and ac- 
cording to the strongest impression or image of 
thought of the individual mind. 

4. It is the source of my life and understanding 
and impresses its nature and wisdom upon me as I 
allow it, through my intuitions. 

Therefore, I control my life and conditions by the 
thoughts I think, since the Universal Mind acts crea- 
tively on my every thought. I am, through my power 
of thought, master of my fate.) 

Realization. 

Meditate on the above law. Think how your life 
has been controlled either by your own thinking or 
by the suggestions that have been made upon your 
mind, either consciously or unconsciously^ When you 
were a child you took your thought from your family. 
Your world was what you made it, but it was an 
unconscious acceptance of the thought and manners 
of your family. After a while you began to think 
independently and your world changed that much 
for you. You began to control consciously the condi- 
tions of your life. As your understanding grew you 
thought more and more independently of your asso- 
ciates, therefore your life became that much different 
from theirs. Did you continue to accept the sug- 



22 The Law of Mind in Action. 

gestions of your environment or did you begin to 
think independently? Either consciously or uncon- 
sciously you are now conditioning your life. 

I will now take conscious control of my life. I will 
think only the things I want to think. I will control 
whatever is to come into my life, by controling my 
thought. I will daily mould my thoughts into finer 
form that Creative Mind in me and around me may 
bring forth a world for me of fairer form. I will 
think thoughts of truth, that I may be guided by 
Supreme Wisdom; I will think thoughts of faith that 
I may have the peace of God that passeth all under- 
standing. I do now so think. I am filled with the 
spirit of love. I am in harmony with the Divine 
Mind. I am open and receptive to the highest feelings. 
I do now consciously contact the Mind of Love and 
Wisdom. I wait on the Lord that He may renew my 
strength. My mind is stayed on Thee and I am at 
perfect peace with all men, and with myself. No 
evil can befall me and the angels of love are round 
about me. Conscious of the godlike qualities of my 
soul, I go my way today in the strength of the Infinite. 
I walk upon the earth as master and not as slave. I 
keep the law and the law keeps me. I obey the law 
and the law obeys me. I give my heart to God in 
divinest joy of self -giving and I feel the helping hand 
of God upon me. I am glad, I am strong, I am full 
of life and love today. 



LESSON III. 
HOW TO USE THE LAW— THE SILENCE. 

THE best results are to be secured by using the 
Law so far as we know it while at the same 
time looking for more light. The student who ap- 
proaches this subject for the first time has as yet little 
to work on for he has not tested out the Law by 
science and experience. But enough has been said 
to make us realize that the object of a treatment is to 
impress our desire on the creative Law with sufficient 
force to register in the Creative Mind, If the Law 
creates for us according to the thoughts we think into 
Mind, then what we must do is to raise our conscious- 
ness to the highest pitch of expectancy so that the best 
possible results may be secured. Accordingly we must 
realize that the first thing for us to do in a treatment 
is to impress our own mind with the feeling that we 
are about to act upon the Law and that it is about to 
act for us. 

1. The right atmosphere for a treatment, there- 
fore, is that of high, faith, so that we will do well to 
bring ourselves up to the proper pitch of expectancy 
by some preliminary reading. Take the Bible and 
read the precious promises in it. "Lo I am with you 
alway, even unto the end of the world." "Who for- 
giveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy dis- 

23 



24 The Law of Mind in Action. 

eases." "They that trust in the Lord shall renew 
their strength, they shall mount up with wings as 
eagles ; they shall run and not be weary ; they shall 
walk and not faint." "According to your faith be it 
done unto you." "Ask, and ye shall receive ; seek, and 
ye shall find ; knoc*k, and it shall be opened unto you." 
"When ye pray, believe that ye have received, and 
ye shall receive." Go over such passages as will help 
you to strong faith. Learn some of the best ones'. 
One should memorize something daily — a verse, a 
stanza of poetry, a statement of truth. Everybody 
should know the Twenty-Third and the Ninety-First 
Psalm and be able to repeat it at such times as needed 
to strengthen confidence. 

It will also be of great help to read for a few min- 
utes or longer in some helpful book of truth. The 
student may well read "Creative Mind" or "Being and 
Becoming." The purpose of this book is, of course', 
to furnish both instruction and inspiration. After 
reading the lesson for the day, you will feel the truth 
more keenly. 

2. Having prepared yourself in faith and knowl- 
edge, the course of your thought might well run along 
the line of the Law, much like this: "I know that I 
am surrounded by the finer forces of Spirit. (Lessons 
IV and VI.) I know that I myself am a center of 
conscious activity in this great ocean of Divine Mind. 
(Lessons V and VI.) I know that my word has be- 
come the word of truth and a model of creation for 
the Creative Mind for the good I desire. (Lessons 



How to Use the Law — The Silence. 25 

XII and XVI.) Go on mentally meditating along 
these lines so long as you feel the interest or need. 

If necessary overcome any feeling that may arise 
of fear or uncertainty. 

3. Rid yourself of any sense of sin or fault. If 
you feel that you have done wrong in any way, seek 
to right it so that you may have a clear consciousness. 
"If therefore thou art offering thy gift at the altar, 
and there rememberest that thy brother has aught 
against thee (cause for it, in your wronging him), 
leave thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first 
be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer 
thy gift." These are the words of the Master Meta- 
physician, and reveal the necessity of no counter 
thought against that of pure faith. If necessary, for- 
give yourself for anything you have done that you 
feel to have been wrong. The son of man has power 
on earth to forgive sin. You are a son of man. 

If you have fear, get rid of it in the same way. 
Cast it out. There is nothing to fear. Pull out all 
the weeds of wrong thinking. Declare that evil or the 
thought of evil has no influence over you. 

4. Now feel as deeply as you can that all is well 
with you and the world. Feel how good it is to know 
this freeing truth; to know that you are a child of 
God; to know that "all power is given unto me in 
heaven and on earth." To know that "greater work 
than these shall ye do because I go unto my Father." 

Then say, "I am pure spirit living in a world of 
spirit and guarded by the Great Spirit of Life." God 



26 The Law of Mind in Action. 

is spirit and they that worship Him must worship 
Him in spirit and in truth. I am now entered in spirit 
and in truth into the higher, finer places where I am 
in contact with all that is. I would see and know the 
truth and feel it at this hour. As a child of the Living 
God, I make my claim upon the Law. Let this good 
(mentioning it) come to me. 

5. Say distinctly and with deep feeling just what 
you want of the Law. You are not dictating to it, but 
if you do not know what you want, the Law has 
nothing to work on. At the same time, what you are 
after is the idea of the thing, so you may be sure that 
the Greater Wisdom will give you only the thing that 
will be for your best good, but it will be the thing you 
want and will be along the line for which you were 
holding the faith attitude. 

6. Expect greatly and you will receive greatly. Be 
strong in your faith, so strong that you feel in your 
heart that it is now done unto you even as you think, 
and you can give thanks for it. "Make known your re- 
quest unto God with thanksgiving." "In everything 
give thanks." Be grateful. 

7. For those who wish to develop spiritual per- 
ception which is the basis of the highest healing power, 
it is desirable to dwell on the thought of Spirit as a 
Living Presence breathing in and through us, vitally 
interested in all our affairs and identifying itself with 
all our highest purposes, and aspirations. The de- 
sires we have are then recognized as those of Spirit 
seeking its own self-expression. The love we have 



How to Use the Lam — The Silence, 27 

is the love of Spirit in us, and the life is but the in- 
dividual manifestation of that larger life in which 
we share. 

The true "Silence" is the quiet realization of Spirit 
with such intensity of feeling that we are merged in 
the Great All and are one with the Infinite Mind. In 
this consciousness we may secure the highest results 
by simply being still and knowing that the Father 
gives us all things even before we ask Him. "Before 
they call I will answer them." "The Spirit knoweth 
what things ye have need of before ye ask them." 

The Final Purpose of These Lessons Is Nothing 
Less than to Bring up the Consciousness of the 
Seeker for Truth to the Point Where the Demon- 
stration Is Made by Simply Knowing in His Heart 
that the Good He Seeks Is His Now Simply Because 
He Has Thought It. That Is the Way in Which 
Creative Mind Makes Things, and in the End that 
Is the Way We Must Secure Them. We Must 
Know That Our Thoughts Manifest as Things. 
This Will Free Us from All Sense of Struggle. This 
Is the Final Peace of the Soul and the Great Goal 
of Individual Life — to Have the Enjoyment of Self- 
Conscious Existence and Yet to Rest in the Infinite 
and Eternal Calm of the Divine Mind. 

Says Edward Roland Sill: 

" 'Tis not in seeking, 

'Tis not in endless striving 
Thy quest is found 
Be still and listen : 



28 The Law of Mind in Action. 

Be still and drink the quiet 

Of all around. 
Not for thy crying, 

Not for thy loud beseeching, 
Will peace draw near; 

Rest with palms folded 
Rest with thine eyelids fallen — 

Lo ! peace is here." 

Realization. 
I rise to the work and the life of the new day with 
strength and courage. I go forth with eagerness to 
my task. I go gladly, blithely on, for at the heart of 
me God presses in to keep me full supplied with all I 
need. I will not today lose conscious contact with the 
life of the Spirit in me. I shall know all day that 
"beneath me are the girders of the Almighty, under- 
neath are the everlasting arms." Whatever comes to 
me cannot find me unprepared. If I need wisdom, I 
have it. If I need courage, I possess it. If I need 
strength, it is within. My inner life is one with God. 
"From within me flow streams of living water." "The 
spirit of truth shall teach me all things and guide me 
in the way of truth." I am held in infinite security. I 
have the wonderful poise and strength of one who is 
conscious of his inner source of strength. Men who 
see me today shall wonder at my out-breathing force 
and magnetic power, but I shall know that it is 
because the strength of the Infinite is in me. So be it. 



LESSON IV. 
SPIRIT. 

SPIRIT is the power that makes things. Like the 
power of electricity or the affinity that holds the 
atoms together, or the life in the flower, it cannot be 
seen, for the simple reason that Spirit is one and the 
same as these. When we see things we perceive them 
as the form into which Spirit has moulded itself. Back 
of them lies the power that made them and supports 
their existence. Spirit then is not a thing or a person 
but a power. Yet its power is the power of Mind, for 
It must exist before It manifests in a material universe. 
Its power accordingly is that of thought and we may 
therefore say that Spirit is the Power that Knows, the 
Mind that Thinks, or the Intelligence that Creates. 
What we call the Life Principle in the plant or animal 
which causes it to exist and grow is therefore a divine 
and universal intelligence. It is Spirit or Mind at 
work. 

All the world is alive 
And throbs with a pulse divine; 
A sentient Mind sustains, 
The soul of it all is God. 
All Nature seems to strive — 
The sap that stirs in the vine, 
The germ that lives in the grain, 
The bud that sprouts on the rod. 

29 



30 The Law of Mind in Action. 

Unity of Spirit. 

We live in a living universe Vibrant with the intel- 
ligent activity of the Creative Spirit. For the intel- 
ligence in the rock, the plant, or man have the same 
source and at the foundation are one. Otherwise we 
should be living in a universe of many powers and 
intelligences which would not be able to understand 
each other and would, therefore, be in constant 
discord. But science reveals the fact of a universal 
harmony and adjustment of parts in perfect order. 
That man can understand this order proves that there 
is a Mind — and only one — in it which is like his own. 

Nature of Spirit. 

This universal Mind or Intelligence is also to be 
described as Love for all its laws are beneficent and 
kindly-disposed toward man. The fire beneficently 
warms us and cooks our food ; the sun gladly gives us 
its light, and life; electricity is our friend and toils for 
us to produce light and heat and power. It is only when 
we reverse the natural order, which is that of the 
Divine Mind or Spirit, that the fire destroys our dwell- 
ing, the sun smites with its heat, and the electricity 
rends us. So the power of the universe which is Spirit 
is also kind: "He sends his rain on the evil and the 
good, and his sun to shine on the just and the unjust." 
He is the Tender Shepherd, the Wonderful Counselor, 
the Everlasting Father. 



Spirit. 31 

Spirit as Wisdom. 

As Divine Intelligence Spirit is also the wisdom 
which directs our affairs, and leads us in green 
pastures and beside still waters, when we seek Its 
guidance. 

Spirit is therefore the Life that lives us, the love 
that keeps us and the wisdom that guides us. The 
Great Heart of the Universe vibrates throughout the 
cosmic plan and we are held by a "love that will not 
let us go." 

Realization. 

Today I look at my world as my friend : The stars 
are the eyes of God that watch me, the winds and the 
brooks are the voice of God that speaks to me, the 
forces of Nature are the Intelligence that serves me. 
I shall not fear today because I walk in a world I 
understand, in the presence of Spirit which under- 
stands me. I draw upon the hidden energies and 
power of Spirit. I am in harmony with it all. (Now 
repeat the 23rd Psalm.) Surely I am led by all love 
and wisdom in the paths of peace./ "When thou 
passeth through the waters, I will be with thee; and 
through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee ; when 
thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned, 
neither shall the flame kindle upon thee." No forces 
are opposed to me because I recognize in them all the 
activity of Spirit, loving me, guiding me, giving me 
new life, today. 

"God's in his heaven — and his creation — and all's 
right with my world." 



LESSON V. 

CREATIVE MIND IN THE INDIVIDUAL. 

\%T E have already seen that there is a universally 
* * present creative intelligence ; and the fact that 
we can recognize it shows that the intelligence in us 
which cognizes it must be of the same kind. What 
the nature of the intelligence is which we observe, and 
the relation of the mind of the individual to the cosmic 
mind, we will investigate in this and the following 
chapter. The modern study of experimental psychol- 
ogy has revealed much that is of assistance to the stu- 
dent of metaphysics regarding the nature of the indi- 
vidual mind, and by analogy, at least, of the universal 
mind. We find that man is possessed of a mind with 
two distinct ways of acting. The two phases of activity 
are called subjective and objective.* Close study re- 
veals the essential unity of these activities and their 
interaction, in such a way as to prove that it is a uni- 
tary mind that acts in either case. The objective mind 
is that which man develops to enable him to contact his 
environment and maintain himself in a world of form 
and sensation. The babe is born into the world purely 
subjective. It probably does not use its objective 

*Note. We use the terms subjective and objective mind for the sake 
of comparison, and the word subconscious as a synonym for subjective. 
While this is not entirely scientific it better answers the purpose of the 
work we are doing here. 

32 



Creative Mind in the Individual. 33 

faculties until it contacts an objective environment. 
But at the moment of its birth, its objective faculties 
begin to develop. It feels the cold for the sensory 
nerve system which is the agent of objective mind 
carries that impression to its brain. This sensory 
system is designed to enable the mind to contact its 
environment and protect the body through the sensa- 
tions and warnings that are registered by it. As time 
goes on the child develops a full set of objective 
activities largely by imitation of the movements, voice, 
and manners of its elders. In early years, environment 
makes a child; in later years he makes it. The 
objective mind with the sensory nerve system under its 
control governs most of the activities of the voluntary 
muscles. If I raise my hand to strike the keys of the 
piano, I do it by an act of will of the objective mind. 
In time, however, through repeated acts, a habit of 
action is formed, and then the movement is done un- 
consciously or under the direction of the subconscious 
mind. 

The subjective or subconscious mind, therefore, is 
found to control the involuntary functions of the body 
such as the beating of the heart, the contraction and 
expansion of the lungs, and the digestion of food. 
We do not have to think consciously about these 
things; they are done unconsciously. The important 
fact about the subconscious mind is this: it is the 
builder of the body, or the creative mind. Under its 
direction new life cells are constantly being born to 
take the place of those which have finished their work 



34 The Law of Mind in Action. 

and are passing away. New heart cells are born each 
minute, new lung cells, new nerve tissues. As every 
action consumes energy and thus produces waste in 
the system, the subconscious mind must busy itself 
with carrying away the waste through the blood, 
pores, kidneys, lungs, and waste system, and at the 
same time go about to build new life cells to take the 
place of the old. Our fingers, for example, would soon 
wear out if they were made of steel, but being made of 
living flesh, they need never wear out for they are 
repaired daily by the builder of the body. Thus a 
marvelous activity is constantly going on within us, 
asleep or awake, of which we are entirely unconscious ; 
and a million servants of the system are each scurrying 
to his appointed place to do his workman-like task. 
So it is literally true that "every day is a fresh begin- 
ning, every morn is the world made new," for we 
rise with a renewed body which is so frequently re- 
constructed that every organ and tissue is doubt- 
less born anew in the course of one year or less. 
While the healer is never conscious of this activity 
and would no more think of trying to direct it than 
the president of a railroad would try to boss a section 
gang, at the same time it is because this activity takes 
place that a new body can be "demonstrated" ; for 
under the stimulus of faith and understanding a 
definite impression of health is made on each new 
cell as it is born and thus the organ is made whole. 
All these recreative agents are very susceptible to 
mental attitudes and reflect our thought either for 



Creative Mind in the Individual. 35 

health or disease. For example, the blood is known 
to contain certain agents for the destruction of 
dangerous germs (a germ being an objectified dis- 
ease thought). These agents customarily approach 
the foreigner, encircle him, literally cover him with 
sauce to make him palatable and proceed to eat him. 
But if the individual is mentally depressed and 
negative, the little guardian of the body reflects his 
attitude, does not cover the germ with sauce and 
refuses to eat him. Then trouble ensues. This 
scientific fact shows the Bible to be correct when it 
says, "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he" in 
his body. 

My world was empty, cold, and chill, 

And all-unkind, 
The while there waited on my will, 

Creative Mind 
With unused powers of vastest good ; 

Yet all-unsought. 
THE VISION CAME, I understood, 

I THOUGHT A THOUGHT: 
And, by that thought, my world, ablaze, 

Flared into form: 
And, by that thought, from primal haze, ^ 

Love, tender, warm, 
Was flashed in splendor to my soul 

No more in fear, 
While angels wrote on heaven's scroll, 

"A Christ is here." 



36 The Law of Mind in Action, 

This Mind Impersonal and Controlled by 

Impressions. 

That the creative activities reflect our mental 
attitudes, as we see so plainly from these examples, 
proves another interesting fact, that the subconscious 
mind and its functioning is entirly under the control 
of impressions made upon it. That is, it acts as the 
creative agent, naturally along the line of health and 
re-creation, which is native to it; but, on the other 
hand, it has no purpose of its own apart from 
the objective mind; and if the objective mind gives it 
impressions of disease, imperfection, fear, worry, pain, 
and so on, it begins at once to create accordingly. We 
see, therefore, that the subconscious or creative mind 
is entirely impersonal; it has no purposes of its own. 
Again, it is subject to control by suggestion; and, 
finally, it is entirely deductive. 

Deductive. 

By deductive, we mean that it takes any suggestion 
given it and then works out the complete idea without 
any further help from the objective mind. Many per- 
sons have had the experience of learning a rule or 
principle in mathematics but could not solve a problem 
by it. On going to sleep, however, they have given the 
problem over to subconscious mind, only to awaken 
during the night with the problem all solved. The 
sleepless mind, with perfect deductive power, ha's 
worked it all out for them. 



Creative Mind in the Individual. 37 

The value of this fact to the healer is that he knows 
that when he gives a treatment he does not need to lie 
awake nights holding the thought. All he has to do is 
to give the idea or concept of perfect health to the 
mind, which will begin at once to carry it out in 
perfect expression in the body. (See Lesson XVI). 

The student should retain these facts about his 
mind: it is creative, impersonal and deductive. In 
Lesson XXIX he will also find how it acts intuitively 
by contacting universal mind and appropriating its 
resources. In Lesson XIV he can study it as the seat 
of the emotions. It is the mind that never forgets ; it 
also is clairvoyant and clairaudient ; and can convey 
and receive telepathic messages, a fact now rec- 
ognized scientifically. 

Finally, it is through this mind that man makes his 
approach to the universal ; for, as we shall see in the 
succeeding chapter, this mind and the universal share 
in a common nature, since both are creative, im- 
personal and deductive. This mind does its work not 
as a separate part "but as an individual activity of the 
universal. It is through it that the universal is able 
to act on the plane of the particular. It is through the 
expansion of man's consciousness of the inner qualities 
of this mind that he is able at length tO' contact the 
universal and through it he may hope ultimately to 
know the truth. Man cannot bring God down to his 
level but through the inner mind he may hope to rise 
to the point where he may more universally compre- 
hend the Infinite. If the student will bear this in 



38 The Law of Mind in Action. 

mind, that his work is the extension of his own con- 
sciousness to grasp the Infinite, he will be urged to the 
highest endeavor as well as filled with the loftiest 
inspirations. 

"Were I so tall to reach the pole 

Or grasp the ocean with my span, 
I would be measured by my soul; 

The mind's the standard of the man." 
Nor should we fail to remind ourselves that there 
is no real separation between what we call the objec- 
tive mind and the subjective of the individual. We 
shall then perceive that the objective is the outer ex- 
pression of the real self which we have been studying 
under the term "subconscious." Then when we per- 
ceive that the real self is the Mind of the Infinite find- 
ing concrete expression in us as the wave finds con- 
crete expression on the bosom of the ocean, we are 
prepared to feel the essential unity of all being and to 
enter into the realization of the Master, "I say ye are 
gods." 

In this perception, man may rise to heights never 
before attained for it is the emancipation proclamation 
of his soul. No more is he who realizes it bound by 
creeds, confessions, precedents or traditions. He is 
free with a glad freedom. His life is complete, for he 
is at one with the All-Life. His wisdom is supreme, 
for the Spirit is his teacher. Freed of all fetters, his 
soul may soar to heights imperial and sublime until he 
stands with the sons of God at the gates of the City 
Celestial. 



Creative Mind in the Individual. 39 

Realization. 

i 

I rise to the consciousness of the godlike nature 
of my own soul. I am today conscious of my union 
with the God and Father of us all, who is over all, 
through all, and in us all. In this high consciousness 
I dare to make claim on the best of all there is. I make 
no ignorant claims of power for "I know Him in 
whom I have believed." I know and dare to assert the 
magnificent powers of my manhood. And if I have 
not yet brought out all my latent powers, still I will 
claim their possession and press on toward the mark 
of the high calling of God in my own soul. I am one 
with Life, I am one with Wisdom, I am one with Love. 
All that the Father hath is mine; and I glory in the 
independence of my soul from every thing, while I 
rest in the consciousness that there is no separation 
between me and the Father. If I have felt any such 
separation, I now cast it out from me forever and go on 
in the joy of my eternal union with All-Good, my Lord 
and my God. I am thankful for this perception of my 
own soul. 



■J, 



LESSON VI. 
CREATIVE MIND IN THE UNIVERSAL, 

LESSONS II and IV have already paved the way 
for the statement that we can discover in the 
universe the presence of a mind exactly correspond- 
ing to that of the individual which we have just 
studied. The presence of a universal order in nature 
reveals an intelligence like our own, for nothing less 
than the presence of a creative and sustaining intelli- 
gence can account for such a miracle of accuracy of 
interrelated parts. This intelligence is at the root of 
all things and its method of activity is what we call 
the law of nature. In the cosmos it works with such 
absolute precision that man's very life depends upon 
it, as in the law of the attraction of gravitation and 
gravity, centrifugal and centripetal motion, or in the 
law of electricity, or the principle of growth. That 
man can dominate his universe and his environment 
proves that at its heart is an intelligence like his own 
or he could not control it. Again it is known that the 
mind or thought of the individual can act to move 
ponderable objects as, for example, we find in Lesson 
VIII. It is interesting to note that other objects than 
metals have been known to be moved by thought. Not 
to mention the miracles of Jesus, we may call attention 
to the records of the Society for Psychical Research. 

40 



Creative Mind in the Universal. 41 

That a metal can be controlled by thought and mag- 
netized by it, shows that a corresponding intelligence 
inheres in it. The study of botany is very fruitful of 
illustration of this cosmic or atomic intelligence. 
Biology and the investigation of cell life, to which we 
have already referred, point to definite conclusions. 
One may read an interesting story in the life of the 
moneron, the lowest form of independent life, per- 
ceiving its purposeful activity in approaching a one- 
cell plant and deciding whether or not it can swallow 
it. If it finds the cell too large, it moves away to 
another. It inflates its body with gas to rise in the 
water or deflates it to sink again. Many other marvels 
are recorded of it by science. The organized social 
life of the bee is illustrative. Maeterlinck's story is a 
romance of Divine Mind with the "Spirit of the hive" 
showing purposeful activity, not for the sake of the 
individual life of the bee but for the sake of the cor- 
porate life and for the preservation of the swarm. 

One need not mention the instinct of the beaver with 
its mechanical engineering ability, nor the dog or the 
horse with their superior instinct. Law in mechanics 
and instinct in animals alike betray the universal 
Cosmic Mind at work. 

The Universal Mind — Subconscious. 

We have already seen that the material universe is 
the outward manifestation of the inner power of spirit. 
Spirit, we said, is the Power-to-Create, it is the power 



42 The Law of Mind in Action. 

that makes things, but it works as the law of growth 
from within. This shows that the universal mind is 
subjective (or subconscious). That it is subjective is 
shown by the fact that it is a unit, as we have seen in 
Lesson IV ; and since it is a unit, it acts independently 
of form or individuality ; and as it acts independently of 
individual volition, it cannot have an objective mind or 
personal activity in the ordinary sense. (See Lesson 
XXVIII.) Again we perceive that the cosmic mind 
is subjective since it is creative. Finally we discern 
that its activities are deductive for this reason: In- 
ductive reasoning is based on the study of the various 
facts and phenomena of life from which a law or prin- 
ciple is induced, as for example, Newton finds that a 
falling apple, a sun, and a moon all act in a similar 
fixed way and from it induces the law of attraction of 
gravitation. Now the universal creative mind cannot 
act by induction since at the beginning of the creative 
series it has no facts or phenomena on which to base 
its inductions. Forms have not yet been brought into 
manifestation. At the same time it can act by deduc- 
tion since deduction is the method by which we move 
in argument from a fixed principle or law to varied 
conclusions. Spirit itself is fixed Principle or Law, 
and so it creates form and manifestation by logical de- 
ductions from its own Principle. It fashions a rose in 
thought, for when the creative series begins it has no 
rose to use for a pattern. It thinks a star into form 
and it begins to shine, or a bird and it begins to sing. 
As form takes rise out of the thought of creative mind, 



Creative Mind in the Universal. 43 

we perceive that this mind is deductive and impersonal 
as well as creative. 

It is necessary in a book of short lessons like this to 
cover these points without a great deal of argument, 
but sufficient is said here to point the student in the 
right direction. By study of the other chapters he may 
make the foregoing principles clearer, but the object 
of this lesson is to show him that both his own sub- 
conscious mind and that of the universe are creative, 
impersonal, and deductive, i. e., each acts with perfect 
creative intelligence to produce in form and manifesta- 
tion whatever impression is made upon it. The ob- 
jective mind is found to have its rise or origin in the 
subjective, is developed in the individual to enable 
him to contact and control his environment ; and then 
the subjective turns about to act as its servant to carry 
out its orders, and objectify its desires. When the 
student has acquired knowledge of these facts, he has 
become master of the first principles of metaphysics 
and can hopefully press on with these weapons in his 
hand to the mastery of his universe. For these are 
the results of them that believe and know : 

1. The body is controlled for health and happiness 
by giving the creative mind within only the highest and 
most perfect ideas and ideals. 7/ you do not know 
what is best to suggest to it, shut out all negative 
thoughts and let it alone; its tendency is toward health, 
and "the spirit knoweth what things ye have need of 
before ye ask them." (Lesson XXIX.) 

2. Since we live in a unitary universe (See Lesson 



44 The Law of Mind in Action. 

X et al.,) our own inner mind is at one with the Infinite 
and we may therefore control our conditions of pros- 
perity and environment as well as our health. Our ob- 
jective mind gives the impression or image to the 
universal subconscious; and the latter acts to produce 
for us just what we think. In practical demonstration 
all we have to do is to forget the terms, "subconscious," 
"objective," etc., and just go to work to realize the 
truth for ourselves. This book is simply designed to 
tell us something of how it occurs, but we must beware 
of thinking of ourselves as having to "create," "work," 
"struggle," or "do" something. We simply identify 
ourselves with the good we desire and then expect it. 
(See my book on "Being and Becoming.") 

3. We can work independently of all antecedent 
conditions : there are no limitations in creative mind, 
no modifiers, no competition, no lack of any kind. All 
Is ; and That Is All. Then, too, the element of time 
does not come in, since in the realm of spirit there 
is no time. Space does not matter for we are dealing 
with a medium where space is unknown. Material or 
physical distance is no barrier because there is none 
in spirit ; and it is as easy to get results in healing with 
the patient a thousand miles away as a few feet. We 
do not send out thoughts for there is nowhere to send 
them. Everywhere is right here. We do not need to 
pump up power from some exterior source for omni- 
potence is here in its entirety when we recognize it; 
since as a unit with the Father, I may say, "All power 
is given unto me in heaven and on earth." 



Creative Mind in the Universal. 45 

4. Destruction, disease, death, and all the ills of 
life come from a sense of separation from the All-Life. 
There can be no real separation since all is one ; but a 
feeling of separateness is at the base of all discord and 
unhappiness. To restore health, wealth, and love, 
therefore, it is necessary only to make our unity with 
life, with Universal Mind, with the ''God and Father 
of us all who is over all, through all and in you all" ; 
for Universal Mind is to those who are conscious of 
their union with It no less than the God and Father 
of us all. In this we should find the most splendid 
inspiration ; for mental science does not rob God of any 
of those essential qualities which our hearts crave of 
Him but rather enlarges our concept of His power and 
our own, at the same time. As Sam Walter Foss says : 

"As wider skies broke on his view 
God greatened in his growing mind, 

Each year he dreamed his God anew 
And left his older God behind. 

He saw the boundless scheme dilate 
In star and blossom, sky and clod, 

And as the universe grew great, 
He dreamed for it a greater God." 

Realization. 

Take the above four statements and meditate upon 
them. 

I now make my conscious union with the All-Good. 
I will no longer feel a sense of separateness. I will 



( 



46 The Law of Mind in Action. 

rejoice in my divine rights as a son in the Father's 
house, j I will arise and go unto my Father. Today I 
am conscious of the Indwelling- Presence oF Divine 
Life, Love, and Wisdom. I realize that my world is 
but a reflection of my own thought, and I think only 
the best, the purest and the truest. I look for my 
good in all things and I find good in all people. I am 
filled with wisdom and the power of Spirit. I am at 
one with the Life of the World and I am glad. (Then 
"ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you." Give / 
thanks.) 



LESSON VII. 
MAN, MASTER ON THE PLANET. 

TO describe man as he truly and divinely is, is to 
describe God in a great variety of his attributes. 
Jesus, the most divinely human and the most humanly 
divine Being who ever came into this world, typifies 
the attributes which man shares with God. C^God is 
Love, Truth, Life, Activity, Intelligence, Spirit. In 
all this man shares with God. He is made in the divine 
image: God breathed into him the breath of life and he 
became a living soul. And it is only^ as man recognizes 
his own true nature and manifests his own inner 
powers that he can rise to the sublime heights which 
Jesus reached and dominate all physical conditions. 
"Most of all he must recognize his own spiritual na- 
ture. This is the great imperative. Man himself is 
spirit.: The real man, the ego, is not the human body, 
nor the human mind*; it is the life or divine mind within, • 
the eternal essence of being which springs from God.* 
This inner or divine life, which is the real man, par- 
takes of the nature of God.» It shares his intelligence, 
comprehends his truths, is co-eternal with his life, 
and co-operates in his activity— "my Father worketh 
hitherto ; and I work." This inner life is complete and 
whole, unlimited in all the essentials of true being. 
Such is man, and it is only as he realizes and acts 

47 



48 The Law of Mind in Action. 

upon these truths that he enters into the rich heritage 
and privileges of health and peace and plenty. And 
it is to restore him to a consciousness of his divine 
being or sonship that the Spirit is ever acting. Such 
was the mission of Jesus, such is the activity of the 
Holy Spirit or Comforter, "who shall teach you all 
things and guide you in the way of truth." The one 
great, distinctive message of Jesus was that God is 
Father and man is son. To the Mosaic message of 
the One Unity he adds the Infinite Multiplicity whose 
organic relationship he demonstrated. "I and the Fa- 
ther are one." "That they may all be one, even as we 
are one ; I in them, and thou in me, that they may be 
perfected into one." 

THE SECRET OF MAN'S MASTERY. 

This is in truth the great secret, but no mystery, of 
man's mastery over all conditions. When he comes 
to realize his spiritual nature, his kinship and unity 
with God, and acts with reason and convinced faith 
upon this knowledge, he has mastered the problem of 
life and destiny. So Jesus mastered it ; and so are many 
men and women today learning how to control destiny. 

It is all here : God, Eternal Spirit acting through 
the power of thought upon a spiritual universe to create 
and recreate : man, in nature, mind and being, like 
God, acting in like manner upon a spiritual creation, 
plastic to his mind, securing similar results in body, 
mind and estate. 

Let us then realize that we are sons and daughters 



Man, Master on the Planet. 49 

of God and so realizing secure all the benefits of this 
relationship. Remember that apart from Him we can 
do nothing but that " with God all things are possible." 
This then is the supreme thought for us to realize. 
"I live in His Eternal Life 
And know His life is mine." 

His life is mine — and all that that life contains is 
mine also ! 

We thus see that we live in a spiritual universe and 
that man himself is in essence and nature a spiritual 
being, fashioned in the image and likeness of God and 
sharing his attributes. As such a being, he himself can 
dominate what we call physical forces and energies, for 
God gave him dominion. In no essential is this more 
true than in relation to the physical organism which 
we call our body. It is immediately in the control of 
the inner principle of life which we call our self. 

We have too long spoken of ourselves as "weak 
human flesh," "creatures of the dust," "doomed to 
decay," and kindred destructive names. As we even- 
tually become what we think, we have indeed manifested 
all the weakness to which we are willing to make our 
flesh heir. But it ought not to be so, and the way to 
change our condition is to immediately change our 
thought. 

Shall you say, "My body rules me. This leg tells 
me / cannot walk. This hand tells me / cannot write. 
This ear tells me / cannot hear. I must do what my 
leg and hand and ear tell me" ? Shall you yield organ 
by organ to what you think that organ tells you until 



50 The Law of Mind in Action. 



ttu 



you become like the man of whom ; Bishop Sabin wrote 
that he claimed to have "lost the use of both lungs and 
had to breathe through his stomach" ? Or will you not 
rather say, "I manifest physically what I am mentally ; 
I, therefore, the true self, do now say to you, Leg, 
walk; Arm, write; Ear, listen"? 

Your pain is not in your leg but in your mind ; your 
deafness is not in your ear but in your thought. And 
when the thought has been completely changed, you 
will find that there is no pain at all. It is indeed 
all a matter of consciousness. If God made a perfect 
creation, He did not make a pain in it. It is inconceiv- 
able that in wanton caprice He should have said, "Here 
is a foot : I will put a pain in that. Here is an arm : 
I will paralyze that. Here is a good man, but I will 
just double up his body with rheumatism." Did God 
do that ? Certainly not ! And if He did not, who did ? 
Wrong thinking did. 

REVERSING OUR THOUGHT. 

But does not this reverse the accepted philosophy of 
the race and its interpretation of human experiences? 
I hope so. For who would wish to continue in an old 
thought that brought pain and suffering into human 
life, because pain is thought to be inevitable ? And the 
new metaphysics is better than the old philosophy of 
life. The old interpretation of life was hard put to it 
to explain why this good man suffered and that bad 
man went free. The new says, "Be he good or bad. 
he will suffer so long as his thought is wrong. Instead 



Man, Master on the Planet, 51 

of believing that suffering 1 is the inevitable 'chastening 
of the Lord,' let him perceive that it is the inevitable 
consequence of wrong-doing or of wrong thinking, and 
let him change his doing and his thinking and he will 
recover." 

So let us realize that there is release from ills of 
flesh, because "flesh" is only the manifestation of our 
thought. The body is not "helpless" and "heir" to pain 
and fear and grief. Spirit is not bound save by the 
tangled threads of thought. Let us think and know the 
truth which makes us free. "Perfect God, perfect man, 
perfect body." "Be ye therefore perfect even as your 
Father in Heaven is perfect." Jesus was, in body and 
in mind and in character. So may we be. 

REALIZATION. 

I am conscious of my at-one-ment of nature with 
the Father. I know that God is all and that there is 
none other but He. Since He is all and yet "I am," 
therefore, "I and the Father are one." Since we are 
one I share his nature and resources. All that the 
Father hath is mine. My soul thrills with the wonder 
of it, my thought enlarges, I pass into deep experiences 
of joy in the revelation that is mine. / can, because 
God can. I know, because I am instructed by Him 
Who Knows. I cannot fail, because God fainteth not, 
neither is He weary. I wait on the Lord that He may 
renew my strength. I trust in the Lord and I am 
therefore as Mount Zion which cannot be moved but 
abideth forever. (Now take time to meditate on the 



52 The Law of Mind in Action, 

wonderful powers and possibilities open to you. Your 
resources cannot fail. Failure is due to the fact that 
you have not drawn upon God. Take what you will. 
Ask and ye shall receive. Then meditate on the fact 
that as you share the nature of God there is no mind 
in the universe greater than the mind in you. Why 
then should you cringe before the opinions of men? 
Why should you walk in fear of criticism, tradition, or 
prejudice of others?) I form my own opinions, I make 
my own judgments, I set my own standards. I am a 
man ! I am a master of life ! I do not try to tell others 
how they must go. By my life I show them how they 
may go. I am glad for this new freedom of conscious- 
ness. I am glad that I share the nature of God for this 
means that I am eternal, I am indivisible from the 
Father, I am truth, I am life, I am wisdom, in my 
inner being. The inner man is perfect and day by day 
I shall now show forth this perfection in my acts and 
thoughts. I am a child of the Living God. And I am 
glad. 



LESSON VIII 
MATTER, OR THOUGHT IN FORM. 

WHAT we seek to do in this chapter is to show 
that the substance which we call "matter" is 
simply a grouping of particles* of energy or 
"electrons" and that these electrons or energy are 
created by thought. This can be shown by experi- 
ments that have been made with the mind of the 
individual, which reveal the fact that his thought either 
creates energy or puts it into purposeful activity. 
Then we want to show that the form things take is 
in response to a corresponding thought. When we 
understand that the material of which things are made 
is thought-energy or vibration and that it can be 
moulded into form by the thoughts we think, we are 
prepared to realize that the world we live in is very 
real and that what we need to do is not to deny it, but 
to understand it, in order to be masters of our bodies 
and conditions. 

Physical science traces matter back to its origin 
in a primary substance which it calls ether. This 
ether pervades all space everywhere and there is no 
place where it cannot be found. Ether is simply a 
name given to that which can neither be seen, felt, 



*Note. Technically the electron is not a "particle" but a property 
of matter. 

53 



54 The Law of Mind in Action, 

tasted, nor actually examined scientifically, yet the 
necessity of the case posits its omnipresence. It is a 
frictionless, pulseless, motionless medium until it is 
moved by some form of energy. 

I. Thought and Energy or Matter. 

When a visible universe comes into existence, it 
begins with a movement of some sort within the in- 
visible ether. Science speaks of the movement as the 
activity of "vortex rings" or whirling particles of 
energy which gradually coalesce into nebulse or vapors ; 
and these violently throw out vast fragments into the 
ether to congeal into planets and systems. Such ac- 
tivity can be seen even at this day in the nebulse of 
Andromeda where a new universe is in process of 
creation. 

Science therefore perceives that the visible universe 
is composed of infinitely small particles of energy 
called electrons. These electrons are the same kind 
whether in a planet, the wood in a table, or the brains 
in a man's head, — a fact which may seem highly un- 
complimentary to the latter. The difference between 
"substances" is then merely the difference in the num- 
ber of particles to a given area and the rate of their 
motion. 

These infinitely fine energized particles coalesce 
sufficiently to form the various things which we 
call mineral, animal, or vegetable substance. But 
they never actually coalesce into an indivisible unit for 
we discover that each atom of energy is separate from 



Matter, or Thought in Form. 55 

every other and that indeed each is as widely separated 
from the other according to its size as the planets are 
according to their size and that there is a further 
similarity from the fact that each atom revolves upon 
its own axis. The "world of matter" therefore is really 
a world of energy and so-called substance is vibration. 
It is very important for the student to fix this in mind 
as the necessary basis of understanding the mental 
origin of the universe, and I would advise the reading 
of some book in elementary science or at least a free 
use of the Encyclopaedia at this point as space forbids 
a further study here. 

Since we live in a world of energy, since the sub- 
stance of the universe is really energy, the problem of 
science and philosophy alike has been to account for 
the first presence of energy in ether. What force 
moved upon or within ether to give the vortex rings 
their first impulse? Many physical scientists now 
declare that the explanation is metaphysical or due to 
the act of a Will or Mind. The student may therefore 
wisely engage his attention in solving this problem. 

Ether and Cosmic Mind. 

The difficulty of explaining the origin of the uni- 
verse is easily dissolved by the mental scientist who 
perceives in so-called "ether" merely another name 
for Cosmic Mind. The physical scientist's description 
of ether exactly corresponds with the mental scientist's 
explanation of Mind or Universal Creative Intel- 
ligence. The movement which results in electrons and 



56 The Law of Mind in Action. 

vortex rings is the movement of the Divine Will 
within the Cosmic Mind ; in other words, Mind thinks, 
and thinking creates energy, and energy in the form of 
electrons produces a universe. 

What is now needed to make this clear is a scientific 
demonstration that thought produces energy. If we 
can show that the individual mind can produce energy 
or act upon it to cause its movement, we can better 
understand how the energy at the base of the universe 
was produced in the existing visible cosmos and is 
being produced in any universe now in the process 
of making. Many modern experiments in physical and 
psychic phenomena support the claim of the power 
of mind to produce energy.. Among them we might 
mention experiments by Sir William Crookes and Dr. 
Hippolyte Baraduc. The investigations of Sir William 
Crookes, many of them verified by other famous scien- 
tists and vouched for by the Society of Psychical Re- 
search and kindred scientific organizations, reveal that 
there is some power in the human body which he calls 
"psychic force" which goes forth to move ponderable 
bodies at the will of the individual. For example, he 
arranged a system of levers which when moved would 
cause a needle to register the movement automatically 
on a smoked-glass plate. The operator then ap- 
proached one end of the lever and without touching 
any part of the apparatus caused the lever to move, 
and the needle to make the record required. This 
experiment was repeated under varying conditions. 
This proves at least that thought produces sufficient 



Matter, or Thought in Porm. 57 

energy to act upon material objects./ Nor can one 
object by saying that it is physical magnetism of the 
body rather than psychic ; since if physical energy does 
flow out to cause the movement, still that energy was 
first moved by the mind of the operator^ Thought 
therefore produces energy. </ 

This is perhaps made still plainer by an experiment 
of Dr. Baraduc's, a popular account of which may be 
secured by the student in Judge Tro ward's Lectures 
on Mental Science.* Dr. Baraduc took a bell made of 
glass and suspended in it, by means of a silken thread, 
a copper needle. This he placed on a wooden base 
above the coil which was used to strengthen any energy 
transmitted to it, but which was not connected with a 
battery. Two bells are used in the experiment ; and the 
operator holds his hands on either side, but not touch- 
ing them. The copper needle is then found to move 
in response to the thought of the operator, a wide 
variance being found in the degree of movement ac- 
cording to the positive or negative nature of the mental 
attitude. 

The value of this experiment is that it reveals that 
thought produces energy, for even if the needles were 
not moved directly by mental currents, still the mind 
had the power through thought to start a correspond- 
ing energy to moving through the body. The point 
of interest to us is that we learn from the foregoing 
experiments that thought moves and probably creates 
energy. Will acting on Creative Mind produces energy ; 

*Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science. By T. Troward. Pages 
108-111. 



58 The Law of Mind in Action. 

and this must be true whether the will be that of the 
Universal or the individual since in either case it acts 
on the same mind. There is only one Creative Mind. 
(See Lessons V and VI.) This is made clearer when 
we think of ether as Universal Mind or the Ever- 
Present Intelligence. This is the infinite repose or 
base of all things, the potential of things, but not 
everywhere active. Since it is not everywhere active, 
energy is not found everywhere but only in places 
selected by Spirit for creative activity. (See Lesson 
XXVIII.) When the creation of a cosmos begins, a 
convulsive movement takes place in selected areas and 
the primary energy of a universe appears. The uni- 
verse in which we live, therefore, is to be conceived of 
as thought and the whole existing cosmos as Mind in 
Action. 

The student should not fail to observe that we thus 
have great facts of mental science graphically proven 
to us. The universe is created from some power resi- 
dent within. It is made out of Mind ; or in other 
words, Spirit makes things by becoming the things 
which it makes. Substance, in its last analysis, is in- 
telligence. Thought therefore turns into things. "The 
Word is made flesh and dwells among us." Since 
substance is intelligence, it is governed by intelligence. 
Since the foundation of the world is Mind, it must be 
one. 

This should clarify the thought of the student as 
to the part he may play in the Divine Plan, for if 
Spirit produces a world by becoming that world (see 



Matter, or Thought in Form. 59 

"Being and Becoming" and "Creative Mind") then 
we produce the thing we desire by becoming that 
thing. Practically speaking, it means nothing less than 
our ability to rule our world and by our thinking to 
cause the things we desire to assemble themselves 
about us. Carrying this to the ultimate of the power 
inherent in us, it means that as Jesus materialized from 
the atmosphere the bread and fish, so may the en- 
lightened consciousness some day aspire to rule his 
world. If we cannot today use the full power of the 
sons of God, we can at least expect that our bodies 
should yield to our will, our environment reflect our 
mental attitudes, and material possessions come into 
our hands. And to as many as receive, to them gives 
He power to become the sons of God in very truth of 
understanding. This is the truth which if known shall 
make us free. 

II. Thought and Form. 

It now remains for us to show that thought gives 
form to substance, a fact which is demonstrated 
without difficulty once the foregoing principle is 
known. As we have learned, creation is growth, un- 
foldment, or expansion of the "principle of life" from 
within. That which we call life or intelligence, then, 
first produces energy or vibration of which the visible 
universe or cosmos is composed. On the other hand, 
the visible universe everywhere manifests itself in 
form. Since Mind is the primary power, since it 
creates particles of energy and these particles of en- 



60 The Law of Mind in Action, 

ergy everywhere group themselves in form, only one 
conclusion is possible : Thought Moulds Substance 
into Form. 

It is a principle inherent in Nature herself that 
substance should assume harmonious form. This is 
illustrated in the snow-flakes which fall in varied, 
flower-like patterns from the silent sky. Or one may 
study the tendency in an interesting experiment in 
musical vibration. Grains of sand sprinkled on a 
piece of plate glass, properly poised, will draw to- 
gether into beautiful geometric figures when the bow 
of a violin is drawn across the edge of the glass, and 
each musical vibration will change the form the sand 
assumes. 

Wonderful as are these experiments, they are 
scarcely comparable with a thousand unnoted miracles 
of creation about us. Examine the formative power 
of creative thought in an acorn. In that frail shell, 
a mighty oak lies cradled and an instinctive intelli- 
gence which will unfold its life into definite form. 

Turn to the stars and study the inner tendency of 
all matter to coalesce, to rotate, and to assume spheri- 
cal form ; and then turn back .to the other end of the 
creative scale and examine the development of human 
life. Within the fetus is the sleepless and mysterious 
intelligence which we call subconscious mind which 
produces the matchless and intricate mechanism some 
day to be in the form of man. 

Do we not perceive, therefore, that the substance of 
the invisible universe is mind: that thought produces 



Matter, or Thought in Form. 61 

energy or the substance of the visible universe by act- 
ing upon the invisible: and again, that thought moulds 
this energy or matter into form? We are led, there- 
fore, to the inevitable conclusion that the Existing 
Cosmos Is Thought in Form; that it exists and 
moves in the limitless sea of the unmanifest Mind; 
and that potential power lies in that Mind to create 
new universes and new forms when and where It will. 

Conclusions. 

The student should carefully study and learn the 
foregoing facts as the working basis of Mental Sci- 
ence. From them he may draw many conclusions. He 
will perceive that he does not have to deny matter in 
order to control bodies and conditions ; he only needs 
to recognize its nature as responsive intelligence. The 
universe is real; matter is real; things are thoughts, 
or, to be more accurate, are Mind taking form through 
thought. We can control our world of interest be- 
cause of the intelligence in it which is obedient to 
thought, provided we are conscious of the facts we 
have learned in the preceding chapters that in our 
potential nature we are one with the Infinite Creative 
Mind. 

Finally, we should observe that the intelligence acts 
on an impersonal basis, creating on the pattern which 
our thought affords to it. It is entirely neutral ; and we 
may mould substance by our thought either into mag- 
nificent physical manhood and womanhood or into 
deformed, emaciated and cancerous flesh. Our word 



62 The Law of Mind in Action. 

or thought is literally "made flesh and dwells among 
us." We get out of our universe what we put into 
it, for it reflects our moods and thoughts. (See Les- 
son XII, et al). Good and evil are alike real, as 
effects, but they are simply the outer expression of 
inner concepts. (See Lesson XVIII.) And you live 
in an eternal, undying universe, for though form and ' 
thought may change, the primary substance can never 
pass away. The primary substance is Mind, and as 
you share in It, you too are eternally at one with It. 
As the Infinite Responsive Intelligence, It is your 
Father leading you in green pastures and beside the 
still waters, 

Realization. 

Study your universe to add your own conclusions 
to those already given. Study it to perceive the Ever- 
Present Good. Look for God in all and through all. 
Your power of understanding Him should be infinitely 
increased by this study. Your faith should be en- 
larged with these enlarged concepts of God. Let your 
realization be therefore one of thanksgiving. 

I thank Thee, Father, that thou nearest me always. 
I thank thee that before I call Thou wilt answer me 
because Thou hearest my unspoken thought. I am 
conscious that my world reflects my moods and 
thoughts, and with that realization I will take care to 
think, speak, and hear only the beautiful, the good, 
and the true. I give Thee thanks that I can now see 
how "I and the Father are one," and I would ever 



Matter, or Thought in Form. 63 

press closer to Thee in the consciousness of the Divine 
Presence. I know that in this consciousness my 
thoughts will be right, my heart will be right, and there- 
fore my universe will be right, since it reflects my 
thoughts and unspoken words. I am filled with joy 
and great peace ; the joy of creative power, since "all 
power is given unto me in heaven and on earth" — 
the joy of Divine Fellowship with Thee, O Father, in 
all the eternal concerns of Thy kingdom. I thank 
Thee for the gift of life and eternal love, Amen. 



LESSON IX. 
THE CREATIVE WORD. 

THE whole universe is alive with cosmic intelli- 
gence ; it is Infinite Creative Mind at work. As 
we have already seen, mind gives birth to thought 
and then uses its thought as the model of its creation, 
just as the artist conceives the idea of his picture and 
then uses the ingenuity of his brain and hand to pic- 
ture forth its beauties in form and color. The mind, 
therefore, whether of the Universal or the Individual, 
has but one way to act at the beginning of any series ; 
it must act by thought. And thought, in turn, always 
expresses in words. We always think in concrete 
terms or words. So we are told by John, 'Tn the 
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God 
and the Word was God. All things were made by 
Him and without Him there was not anything made 
that was made." And we are told in another place 
in Scripture, "By the word of the Lord were the 
heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath 
of His mouth." This is the answer to the question of 
science, "How did vibration originate?" It is easy 
enough to explain the evolution of the planetary sys- 
tems and the life of the universe if we can explain the 
first introduction of motion, but whence did that 
come? 

64 



The Creative Word. 65 

We learn from the study of physics that the nature 
of primal substance or ether is that all its particles 
are in perfect equilibrium or balance. The only way 
this balance can be disturbed and brought into form 
is by the application of some immaterial force to primal 
substance. We must therefore posit a Will some- 
where, or the act of Mind, for that is the only possible 
immaterial force. So science may say that the "vortex 
ring" which is the first movement in the beginning 
of a universe takes its motion from the act of Mind. 
This is in harmony with what we have learned about 
Spirit, that "it is the power that makes things." The 
ancient seers knew this before science began ; and they 
said, "The Spirit of God hath made me, and the Breath 
of the Almighty giveth me life." 

Life can only come from Life, and motion can only 
have its origin in mind. The word spirit comes from 
the Latin, "spiro," "I breathe." The universe there- 
fore springs from the out-breathing of Mind. This is 
the expansive movement of spirit with which ancient 
philosophers deal so much ; as the Bible says, "The 
spirit of God moved on the face of the waters." The 
word "waters" is the esoteric term for Mind or Cre- 
ative Mind. The Word acts on Mind to produce sub- 
stance in the visible universe and then to bring that 
substance into varied forms, in sun, moon, stars, land, 
sea, vegetation, and man. 

So we find that Mind acts by thought, thought ex- 
presses in words, and we may go one step further and 
say that words are expressed by the voice. Therefore 



66 The Law of Mind in Action. 

all ancient writers dealt much with the Voice. "The 
Voice of the Lord is upon many waters." The Sanskrit 
writings speak of Vach; the Latin is Vox, or Voice. 
In other words, the objective universe which is made 
up of motion or vibration in some form or other be- 
gins with the Voice. Until the Voice speaks the uni- 
verse exists only in Creative Mind. As soon as Cre- 
ative Mind selects a place to begin the creation of a 
universe, it then starts motion or vibration by the 
Voice. The whole Objective world can be explained 
as vibration in some form or other. Everything from 
the gold in your watch to the light in the sun, from 
the chair you sit on to the brains in your head is com- 
posed of particles of substance at different rates of 
vibration. All material things can be divided into 
atoms, and theoretically dissolved into ether. Ether is 
simply another name for Mind. The electron is energy. 
The ultimate substance of which all things are made is 
the same therefore. But objects differ in the number of 
particles to a certain area and the rate of their motion. 
This is something we may all pause to meditate on 
because it shows us that we live in a universe that is 
all one. Says William Hayes Ward, "The whole great 
universe of starry worlds is one, built out of the same 
materials, moved by the same forces, governed by the 
same physical law. It is all one single system, one 
law, one order of thought, one scheme, one geometry, 
one plan fitted to one formula, one unitary universe." 
This one substance is Mind, the one force is the 
force of thought which becomes concrete in words and 



The Creative Word. 67 

expresses in Voice or vibration. For a voice is only 
intelligible vibration, or purposeful sound. Again 
the purposeful sound must be the Word. 

We see, therefore, that the Creative Principle is the 
Word. "By the Word of the Lord were the heavens 
made." 

Our Creative Word. 

We do not need to go further to draw the inference 
as to our own creative word. If we share the nature 
of God, if our thought acts on Original Substance, 
that is, in the Divine Mind ; then every word we speak, 
whether we are shallow or deep, is a creative word. 
That is why we are told, "By thy words thou shalt 
be justified and by thy words thou shalt be con- 
demned." Such is the fateful activity of the word we 
send forth into the universe. Something of the power 
and persistence of the words we speak may be gathered 
from a new and strange phenomenon discovered in the 
wireless telegraph instrument. It seems that operators 
keep picking up strange sounds, the apparent echoes 
of band music and so on. Many believe that the vibra- 
tions thus picked up may have started in the atmos- 
phere long ago; how long no one knows. It is con- 
ceivable that the vibration started by the musical 
instrument, or the voice, may never die out. It is 
probable that it never does die. It enters the primary 
ether and sets it in motion; and nothing stops it 
from echoing forever. Perhaps some day the refined 
wireless instrument will be picking up out of the 



68 The Law of Mind in Action. 

ether vast the words of the Master Teacher as he 
talked centuries ago by the Sea of Galilee to his com- 
panions or as he stood before Pilate or from the cross 
said, "Father, forgive them for they know not what 
they do." 

However this may be, we may be sure of one thing, 
that our word is creative, that it acts on our condi- 
tions, our universe, and our own bodies. How careful 
then should we be in the selection of the things we 
are to say ! We must let no word fall on some sensi- 
tive ear to rankle in some heart with its hurt, to act 
as suggestion to base thought, to draw men down. 

"Let me no wrong or idle word 
Unthinking say, 
Set thou a seal upon my lips 
Just for today." 

How often men literally damn their home, their 
business, and themselves by the idle words they speak ! 
To utter a pessimistic thought is to create an atmos- 
phere to correspond (See Lesson XXVII) and thus to 
bring upon you the thing you fear. To speak unkindly 
to others is to curse them. To criticise is to push still 
further into the mire the one against whom your criti- 
cism is directed. "Every idle word that men shall 
speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of 
judgment." That day is now. The author knew of 
a woman recently whose idle tongue caused so much 
disturbance that it cost her husband one of the finest 



The Creative Word. 69 

positions in his profession in the state. Her careless 
use of words destroyed his position. 

On the other hand, the noble soul is always speaking 
constructive words, words of cheer, words of good- 
will, words of encouragement to all whom he meets. 
Such men are benefactors of their race, yet their serv- 
ice is one which any soul can render if he will. He 
blesses all mankind, but mankind in turn calls him 
blessed ; and thus to boost others is to boost himself. 
Yet the noble soul does not think of this. He casts 
his bread on the waters but not that it may return in 
many days. Rather, he does it because he loves his 
fellowmen. His "word becomes a lamp unto the feet 
and a light unto the path." 

If you would then become one of the helpers of 
your generation, fill your heart and thought with the 
best things. "Keep thy heart with all diligence for 
out of it proceed all the issues of life." Our words 
will come forth with beauty and grace as we have 
beauty and grace in our heart and thought. 

"Then let your secret thoughts be fair ; 
They have a vital part and share 
In shaping words and moulding fate, 
God's system is so intricate." 

Realization. 

I know that I control my world and my destiny by 
the thoughts I think. I know that if my heart is 
right, my thoughts will be right; if my thoughts are 



70 The Law of Mind in Action, 

right, my words will be right; if my words are right, 
my world will be right. I therefore will set a seal 
upon my lips. I will guard my every thought and 
word. I will think no evil ; I will hear no evil ; I will 
speak no evil. I will set my mind on the highest things 
and the best. My tendency to speak critically is now 
gone from me ; my habit of fault-finding is gone. I no 
longer damn myself, my friends, or my business by 
my words of pessimism. I am all optimism and hope, 
I am full of good cheer. I bless everybody and every- 
thing. I am an encouragement to all. "My word is 
made flesh and dwells in reality." Let me be ever 
filled with hope and cheer. Let the spirit of the Lord 
be on me. (Then realizing the creative power of your 
words, give the command to your conditions. Say, 
"Let this thing be done."- This is the creative word, 
the word of confident command. Let it be done unto 
me even as I will. This is my will.) 

I thank Thee, Father, for this confidence and be- 
cause Thou teachest me all things and givest me all 
things. 



LESSON X. 
THE OUTER AND THE INNER UNIVERSE. 

THE imagination of man stands awed before the 
vastness of the universe in which he lives. He 
stands at night watching the stars prick forth into the 
infinite reaches of space. With his naked eye he can 
see 3,000. He goes to the telescope ; and through the 
lens 100,000,000 pass across his startled vision. He 
places a photographic plate beneath the instrument 
and it records one million million. 

Each of these stars is a sun and many of the suns 
are vaster than the great orb that makes our day. Be- 
side these stars, he is told by science, there are as 
many more dead suns streaming in .endless procession 
through space. Around each of these suns revolve 
various numbers of planets, just as the earth, Jupiter, 
Venus, Neptune and others revolve around ours. Our 
sun has eight planets. Some of the planets in turn 
have several moons revolving around them. Jupiter 
has eight. Dismayed by the very vastness, we are yet 
told by science that undoubtedly other suns and planets 
exist beyond the reach of any means that can be de- 
vised to detect them. Not only so, but new planetary 
systems are springing into being at this time. The 
nebulae of Andromeda are the first gatherings through 

71 



72 The Law of Mind in Action. 

glowing gases of a new universe which some day will 
be flung in glorious constellation across the ethers. 

Numerous as are these stars, yet they do not jostle 
each other in space. Our own sun, which is a star to 
other planets, is 93,000,000 miles from the earth and 
is traveling at the rate of 800 miles a minute. The 
next nearest star, Alpha Centaura, is distant about 
25,000,000,000,000 miles. The North star circles the 
heavens 316,666,666,000,000 miles away. 

Light travelling at the rate of 186,000 miles per 
second requires years to reach our planet. Science 
shows us that it takes the light of some of the nebulae 
8,000,000 years to come to us. 

No eye really has ever beheld a star. We have only 
seen the light which has been streaming from it for 
perhaps millions of years. 

Vast as are these distances, they are matched by a 
peerless harmony that holds all the stars in fixed and 
definite orbits. By a mutual attraction and repulsion, 
they make their own untroubled way through the in- 
visible pathways of the sky. 

Our very imagination is for a moment overwhelmed 
with the thought of a universe at once so vast and so 
harmonious. Freely the stars swing out into space, 
yet move under fixed laws and in rhythm so perfect 
that many people believe, and with reason, in the very 
music of the spheres. 

Yet the awful majesty of the heavens, the infinite 
evolution of the planets has found its equal in the 
matchless mind of man. For all that is evolved out 



The Outer and the Inner Universe. 73 

there is involved in me here. I have in me something 
that mates it at every point. I could not grasp it, I 
could not recognize it, unless there were in me a con- 
sciousness as great as the heavens. In me is a some- 
thing which we call mind that can "take in" the whole 
starry vault. I can gather it all into my own mind. 
I can recognize it. I can swallow it all in a glance. 
There must therefore be involved in me all that is 
evolved out there. 

Realization. 

J have in me the vast universe of thought. I, look- 
ing at the stars, am greater than the stars looking at 
me. They find in me the matchless capacity to under- 
stand them. I am above them for I am conscious of 
both them and myself. I am made as the angels of 
heaven. I tread upon the pathway of the stars. I 
move amid the eternal ways as master. By my mind 
I am king of the worlds. Today I go about my work 
with the step of a monarch. Am not I one with the 
power that made the spheres, since I am greater than 
they ? I am. Today I will live above fear, and small- 
ness, and meaness of any kind. I will companion with 
stars. I will rest in the quiet confidence that He 
who brought these into being and holds the heavens 
in his hand, shall keep me in perfect security — for I 
am one with the Mind that made them. 



LESSON XI. 

THE INFINITE SELF. 

OUR ability to conceive of God in his infinite quali- 
ties requires an inherent infinite capacity in our- 
selves, as we saw in the lesson on the Outer and Inner 
Universe in the previous chapter. Today we want 
to study the attributes of the Infinite which are 
infinite in the self. We must realize that while we 
never express all of them in their entirety at any 
time, yet they exist as the background of our life and 
the possibilities of our being. The volume of water 
in a canal may be limited at any given moment, yet 
back of it and at one with it lies the ocean from which 
it can limitlessly draw. We have attributes of being 
co-extensive with Spirit or God himself. These are 
love, life, and wisdom. 

Love in us is infinite, for no one ever did or ever 
can exhaust the supply of love in himself. Indeed, the 
more we love, the more we feel the power within us 
of further loving. The noblest cosmic soul, instead of 
exhausting his resources of love, becomes rather a 
type of the 

"Immortal love, forever full, 
Forever flowing free, 
Forever shared, forever whole, 
A never-ending sea." 

74 



The Infinite Self. 75 

Life in us is also infinite. However fully we live, 
we have but an increasing sense of our own living- 
ness. Much health begets more; and he who most 
truly lives, most surely believes in exhaustless ener- 
gies behind. It is only the invalid who loses faith 
in the boundless life and the weakling that fears its 
end. Life cannot be "lived up," for it is infinite. 

Wisdom, too, is infinite. No one has ever exhausted 
his capacity to think new thoughts and utter new 
sayings. The greatest scholars have always recog- 
nized that whatever knowledge they have expressed 
and truths they have outlined are as nothing com- 
pared with the number of those yet to be brought forth 
out of the mind. 

We may say then that in the essential attributes of 
godhood — love, life, and wisdom — man is infinite 
in potential quality. We can now go a step further 
and say that this life, love, and wisdom is that of 
God himself. The logic is simple. These powers are 
infinite. There cannot be two infinites of the same 
kind. But these are of the same kind, for if they 
were not, we would not be able to understand 
them in God for we would have no way of feeling 
any sense of relationship with them. We can be 
conscious of anything only as we feel some relation- 
ship to it. Since, then, these attributes of life, love and 
wisdom in God are the same kind as our own, and 
since both are infinite, they must be one. Jesus knew it. 

The Master Teacher exclaimed, "I and the Father 
are one." And they took up stones to stone him. 



76 The Law of Mind in Action. 

"Many good works have I shown you from the Father ; 
for which of those do ye stone me?" he asked. 

"For a good work we stone thee not, but for blas- 
phemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest 
thyself God.'' 

"Is it not written in your law: 'I said, ye are 
gods ?' " 

Looking into the faces of those whose /hate, hy- 
pocrisy, and legal power sought to destroyjaim, Jesus 
proclaimed the divinity of man. "If I do not the 
works of the Father, believe me not. But if I do them, 
though ye believe not me, believe the works; that ye 
may know and understand that the Father is in me, 
and I in the Father." And later he said two signifi- 
cant things of those who were to follow him, "Greater 
works than these shall ye do because I go unto the 
Father," and, "That they may be one even as we are 
one." 

If the "works" men do are the test of divinity and 
"greater works" are now being done, may we not 
say that man's divinity is today being more highly 
attested than ever before? And these works must be 
ever greater as you come more and more to understand 
the infinite resources of the self ; for, as you learn in 
the lesson on the law of correspondences, you manifest 
or externalize (this mean, "the work") just what you 
think within. Your power to control the conditions of 
your life depends entirely on your ability to compre- 
hend in larger measure the truth of your own inherent 
and infinite life, love, and wisdom. As your ideas 



The Infinite Self. 77 

grow, so will your capacity increase to embody them, 
faith in form, until at last you stand master of fate. 

Realization. 

Meditate on the truth just expressed. It is merely 
a sketch; you can fill in the outline with your own 
meditation. Bring your thought up to a high point 
by "imaging" and "feeling" the vastness of this God- 
Power in you — the Infinite Self. If infinite, it can 
never be exhausted, never fail, never die. Think of it ! 
"I and the Father are one." All day you are in the 
Presence of the Infinite. Practice that Presence to- 
day. Read Chapter ten, verses 19 to 38 in John. 
Learn a few of the best verses. Learn the four-Jine 
stanza of "Immortal Love." . Fill your mind with the 
truth and then say: 

I am living today the infinite life; therefore am I 
perfectly well. I am loving with an infinite love, 
therefore am I perfectly happy; I am thinking with 
the mind of infinite wisdom, therefore I have peace 
and harmony. Today I have peace, poise, and a feel- 
ing of power. I am living in the life, love, and wisdom 
of the Infinite, So be it! 



LESSON XII. 

THE LAW OF ATTRACTION AND 
APPROPRIATION. 

OUR gifts from heaven are those only which we 
will receive. We must learn that we can receive 
from the Law only what we give to the Law ; that the 
Law assumes toward us just the attitude we assume 
toward it. If we conceive of God as a loving Father, 
he becomes that to us and comes out with open arms 
to welcome his loved one home. If, on the other hand, 
we see in Him only a stern and relentless judge, we 
find the Law reacting to us relentlessly. If, further, 
we look upon the Law as our antagonist, that it be- 
comes to us, and is the "adversary" of which Jesus 
spoke who will "not let us go until we have paid the 
utmost farthing." We can conceive of the Law as a 
magic mirror which creates in form and substance 
just what we reflect into it. Infinitely exact and cre- 
ative, it takes the loveliest reflection of face and form 
and makes it into a breathing thing of flesh. Or it 
takes the hideous face like that of the Medusa and 
it becomes a living creature with its writhing locks of 
serpents. But this magic mirror reflects that which 
is more subtle than flesh; it catches the vision of our 
thoughts ; it takes the imaginations of our heart, and 
breathes them into life and form. So the loveliest 
thought draws forth its own sweet self clothed in flesh ; 
and base thought and passion are moulded into deeds 

78 



The Law of Attraction and Appropriation. 79 

and acts as vile. Why? Because the universe as- 
sumes to us just the attitude we take toward it. This 
is what we call the law of correspondences. 

From this it becomes evident that what we receive 
from the Law depends on our ability to conceive. How 
much faith have you? The Law will justify it. Can 
you conceive of the Infinite Good as ready to pour 
out for you above all you ask — with the universal 
plus added to it? "According to your faith it will be 
done unto you." "Give unto the Law, and it shall 
be given unto you; good measure, pressed down and 
running over shall be given into your bosom." "Ask 
and ye shall receive; seek and ye shall find; knock 
and it shall be opened unto you." "If a son asks 
bread, will he (the father) give him a stone, or fish 
and he give him a serpent?" "How much more then 
will your Heavenly Father give good gifts to them 
that ask him!" 

We note here that Jesus shows the exactness of the 
law; if you expect bread, you will get bread, if fish, 
you will get fish. And if you expecfc a stone, you, will 
get it. Our bread from heaven comes then in response 
to the attitude we mentally assume toward heaven, so 
that it becomes plain that the thing we need to do is to 
grow a deeper consciousness or capacity to conceive 
and appropriate. Let us today look upon our universe 
with faith^lfaith in all nature, faith in man, faith in 
God. 

Realization. 

I look for the good and the good only. I see the 



80 The Law of Mind in Action. 

\ ' 

good in everything and everybody. God is Good and 

He gives to me above all I ask or think. I see in Him 
my loving Father, my gracious Redeemer. I perceive 
the harmony in all things, and the beneficent mind of 
the Universe. God is Father of all, and therefore I 
behold in everyone my friend and brother. No man's 
hand is set against me ; and my hand is not set against 
anyone. All men everywhere are my kindred, and 
I am a friend to all. Beholding the infinite response 
of nature, man and God to my mood, I am today think- 
ing only high and fine thoughts. I am filled with the 
brightest and finest faith and emotions. (Now take 
up the thought of healing for body or conditions. 
Think how the sickness is due to wrong thinking some- 
where. Find out if you can the mental cause that 
produced it, and mentally or physically cast it into 
outer darkness — which is to recognize that it has no 
power over you and is therefore nothing to you.) 

The only power this has I have given to it. I now 
withdraw the power, which is my belief in this evil ; 
and it falls into elemental nothingness. I am now full 
of faith in my healing. I am a child of Spirit — perfect 
and complete. My thoughts are thoughts of health and 
harmony. I now receive health and harmony ; Creative 
Mind is working to create for me a perfect cor- 
respondent to my thought. My thought is perfect, my 
faith is sure. I have a perfect concept of health'. Today 
I am healed. I thank Thee, Father, that thou hearest 
me always. Today I talk with Thee and walk with 
Thee; I am sure of myself and Thee and All. So be it. 



LESION XIII. 

CHOOSING THE LAW YOU WILL LIVE 
UNDER. 

EACH of us selects the law under which he will 
live. It is not true that we make the law ; but 
we decide which law we will obey. The citizen lives 
under the civil law which he has helped to make. If 
he did not make it, still he elects to live under it, for 
he can emigrate to another country or he can refuse to 
obey it. The soldier puts himself under the military 
law and the sailor submits himself to the law of the 
sea. The physician subjects himself to the law of 
medicine, and the osteopath to the law of manipula- 
tion. The fearful trembling soul elects to live under 
the law of chance and finds himself in a world that 
corresponds, with accidents, floods, and sudden storms. 
The drug fiend, the drunkard, are ruled by the law 
of their choice, preferring its hard tasks rather than 
the surrender of its sensations. The pessimist chooses 
to live under the law of the cloud ; and the optimist 
under the law of the sun. The materialist lives in a 
world of matter governed by material laws and in 
a universe of fatalism. The glorified soul says, "I 
live in a world of mind and will obey its laws. I have 
my being in a world of spirit and can control my own 
conditions. I exist in the heart of the Infinite and 

81 



82 The Law of Mind in Action. 

will enjoy Its fruits of love, for the fruits of the 
Spirit are love, joy, and peace." 

What law are you living under today? You may 
choose which one. But remember that within each law 
the fundamental principle of the universe is still at 
work , every cause will have its effect. - Every good 
deed has its reward ; every evil word has its conse- 
quences; every act of faith will draw its high behest 
from heaven. 

Today, therefore, let me choose to live under the 
highest law of being, and let me go on in perfect 
security. If I keep my law, my law will keep me. If 
I obey my law, my law will obey me. Let me not for- 
get that I make my world by the thoughts I think. 

Realization. 

My law today is love, faith, prosperity and truth. 
I look unfalteringly into the future for I am today 
sowing the seed for my future harvest, and it is good. 
I expect a good harvest. So today I rest in peace and 
faith. I trust in God. His law is love. 



LESSON XIV. 
FEELING AND EMOTIONS. 

IN feeling is the creative power ; and there is the real 
divinity of man. One's first impression is that it 
lies in thought. But deeper than thought is the power 
that produces it and the feeling that creates it. We 
think because we feel. Creation is not directly in 
thought but in feeling. Every word we speak is a 
creative word, but it is the feeling that it expresses 
and which accompanies it that creates. The deepest 
feeling produces the highest creation. A word spoken 
in love produces harmony in body and ease in condi- 
tions. A word spoken in hate throws poison into 
the blood and produces physical discord for the 
hater. This is the more easily understood when we 
think of the creative mind in terms of subjective mind. 
This mind is the seat of all emotions and feelings ; the 
objective mind has only memories of the emotions that 
have been experienced. The subjective mind is simply 
another name for creative mind; and therefore the 
creative mind acts on the feeling which in essence 
it is. 

That all creative acts are accompanied by the high- 
est feeling identifies feeling with the power to create. 
The union of the masculine and feminine principle is 
a lofty emotion whether it be in the mad affinity of the 

83 



84 The Law of Mind in Action. 

atoms, or the sweet fertilization of the plant or the 
procreation of animal life. Yet, as all acts on the sense 
plane are but the outer manifestation of an inner 
thought or feeling, and as all acts which are true to 
Nature are also true to God, the joy of physical 
creation is but the reflex or externalization of inner 
and finer feelings and emotions. The sense act is 
divine as all nature is divine from planet to man, since 
both are the product of Divine Mind, yet back of it 
lies the noble emotion of the soul, — the spiritual 
emotion. No feeling on the physical plane can rival 
the joy of mental creation as in the work of the 
inventor, artist, or composer. Yet above this shines 
the higher star of spiritual conception which is love. 
To express love is to outrival all the mad ecstasies of 
nature in the sweet ecstasy of the soul. Both can be 
defined as the union of kindred things, but love is the 
union of spirit with spirit, where soul meets soul and 
is satisfied. Love is the desire of God for complete- 
ness in another. This is Creative Feeling. It is to 
accomplish it that the whole universe is produced, that 
at the end of the series man might rise and on his own 
initiative seek completeness in God and thus enable 
God to fulfill his desire. Man thus pours back to God 
across the chords of life the rich music of a heart in 
tune with Him. Thus God and man and nature join 
in the great divine harmony of being. Feeling must 
be regarded, therefore, as the Divine-Power-to-Be- 
come Manifest. In the physical organism it is the 
genuine correspondent of the highest in spiritual being, 



Feeling and Emotions. 85 

and it exists in man as the basis of creative energy. 
Rightly directed, feeling can be depended on as the 
current of divine life flowing out into' expression in all 
our affairs, in health and wisdom. 

Do not fear the emotions, nor think there is virtue 
in the denial of the higher senses. That is a false 
philosophy. Rightly control the feeling, yet recognize 
it as Spirit's joy seeking expression through you. 
Deep feeling of genuine emotions of love, faith, sym- 
pathy, joy of existence, these are the creative factors, 
the positive elements in the realization of the new life. 
Abstract thinking, calm reasoning have no such power 
as thought sustained by feeling. Many people become 
intellectually persuaded of the truth of the new wav 
of life, which we call the science of mind, who yet do 
not get results through their knowledge. What is 
needed therefore is to bathe knowledge in the deep 
feeling of truth. How shall this be accomplished? 

We must realize that it is secured in the same way as 
any other quality we desire. If we wish to develop 
a quality or demonstrate health or wealth, we do so 
by stating to ourselves that it exists, exists for us now, 
and by laying claim upon it. Then we go quietly 
about our work and expect the law to work out our 
manifestation for us. Mind then acts to produce in 
expression or form what we have given it in thought. 
The great moving heart of the universe stands ready 
to pour through the channels we provide, the life 
and love which It is. For us to recognize It is to allow 
It to become manifest for us. It assumes toward us 



86 The Law of Mind in Action. 

the attitude we assume toward it. Knowing this, we 
may well put our knowledge into action through the 
following simple breathing exercise. All the finer 
forces of the body can be made to tingle with this 
exercise. Having found a restful position, breathe 
deeply and as you inhale, say, "I am breathing in all 
the love and faith of God. The spirit of life is now 
filling my whole body." Then, as you exhale, imagine 
yourself as diffusing all the new energy of life 
throughout the body and say, "I feel the presence of 
divine life passing through my whole being." This 
will produce a fine ecstasy as the thought at once puts 
the body into a vibration corresponding to it. This 
gives us feeling in physical expression which produces 
confidence that we can have mental and spiritual feel- 
ing as well. In fact, we shall find that we do at once 
begin to feel the power of divine life in us. This 
exercise is especially desirable for those who, through 
over-effort of body or mind, have depleted what is 
often termed the "reserve power" and produced a 
condition of exhaustion. We are now ready to use 
the following meditation, striving always to feel as 
deeply as we can. 

Realization. 

I know that God is life, love, and wisdom. I know 
that this life, love, and wisdom is in me for I am one 
with the Father. I know that in me is a vast power 
of faith. I feel the new confidence of one who draws 
from the heart of Infinite Love. "He that believeth on 



Feeling and Emotions. 87 

me, from within him shall flow streams of living 
water", said Jesus of the spirit. Love is in me, over 
me, around me, and through me. All power and love 
is given unto me. I am now receptive to the highest 
that God can give. I receive it in deepest joy and 
thanksgiving. I thank Thee, Father, that Thou hearest 
me always. 



LESSON XV.- 

THE INSTINCT TO CREATE. 

' 1 A HE instinct to create is found in every normal 
■*• person. It is one of the first tendencies of our 
childhood and persists so long as life holds any value 
for us. Being native to us all, it indicates a common 
source — it springs out of the Creative Mind Itself. 
Spirit is instinctively creative. God has creative 
desires and powers which can only be satisfied in 
making something. He longs to express his power 
to create, to use his thought to body forth his ideas 
into form. It is the passing of ideas out into form that 
produces joy and feeling of pleasure. God is the Great 
Artist who dreams a picture and then paints it; the 
Great Composer who feels his harmony within and 
seeks to voice it. He puts into form what he feels 
and thinks within. 

We find the same thing to be true of ourselves. We 
are not all artists or musicians ; but we all have creative 
instincts and the desire to make things* A woman 
likes to make a new hat and enjoys both the new crea- 
tion and the admiration of her friends. She likes to 
stir up a cake and produce either a new recipe or get 
unusual results from an old one. She enjoys her 
home-making and the use of her mind in working for 
the church, charity, or the club. A man likes to 

88 



The Instinct to Create. 89 

measure his mind against circumstances and the busi- 
ness world, to see what he can do with the materials 
he has to work with, to devise new methods to meet 
changing conditions, new forms of advertising or 
economy, and to make an old business pay more. 

Life has meaning and value only as we are able to 
express our ideas and to create. When I was a young 
man, I thought that only youth had its visions and its 
dreams, and I said to a woman of forty, "I don't see 
.what there is in life for anyone who has reached your 
age." "Oh, we have things we want to work out just 
as you do," she said. She was full of creative ideas 
and she joyed to bring them forth into form. 

The reason why men and women "pass the dead 
line" is because they have ceased to have creative 
ideas and the desire to express them. So long as we 
have interest, eagerness, enthusiasm and the desire to 
create, we have something the world wants ; and we 
cannot pass the "dead line." Age lies not in years but 
in feeling. To remain young, we must feel a desire to 
act creatively. 

People who are placed in a position where they 
cannot express themselves are often crazed, or dis- 
couraged, or impoverished by their inability to create. 
They can be healed by giving them something to do, 
by finding new interests for them. Often shock, fol- 
lowing the loss of a friend, paralyzes the creative in- 
stinct ; and the cure lies in finding something helpful to 
do, especially for those in great need. Often, too, one 
may be helped by taking care of children, or in seeking 



90 The Law of Mind in Action. 

to make them happy and by watching them in their 
creative activity : to give a child a good time is to give 
one to yourself because you live again in the child. 
The life of a grandparent is happier than that of old 
age without children on this account. 

Happiness, therefore, rises out of the joy of self- 
expression and in creative activity. If you are not 
happy, then look to your sources. Begin to think 
creative thoughts; seek creative ideas and impulses, 
demand opportunities to bring out into form all that 
you feel yourself to be. In the end, you will find that 
God is seeking self-expression in life, love, wisdom 
and form in you. Make yourself a channel for the 
highest and best that spirit has to utter through you. 
Creative Mind and you are one. 

Treatment. 

I am one with Creative Mind. It seeks in me its 
full expression. My joy is great that I am thus 
allowed to work with God. I am now filled with 
creative ideas and plans. I am one with All Wisdom 
that produces them. I am taught by spirit what things 
to think and do. I am lead by spirit to act wisely and 
truly today. I shall walk only in the paths of peace 
and power. I feel new powers and new capacity. I 
am renewed in mind and body. I thrill with joy and 
anticipation. I am conscious of the Presence of All 
Wisdom and Truth; and I am perfect success today. 



LESSON XVI. 
OUR IMMACULATE CONCEPTIONS. 

WE are what we think. Our highest ideals control 
our interest and thus our thinking. Men's ideals 
are their religion for we cannot see God, but we can 
conceive of Him. The higher our ideals, therefore, the 
higher is our concept of God and the purer is our 
religion. Ideals and faith are blended into one. Our 
ideals are what we conceive of as possible; our faith 
is our belief that these ideals not only can but will be 
realized. The noblest manhood and womanhood be- 
comes, therefore, the best exponent of Christianity; 
and to live nobly is to be a Christian in the truest sense. 

The reason why we. need to have high ideals is that 
the law creates for us on the model we give it. If our 
ideal of perfection is brute strength, that develops 
without the charm of personality and character. If, on 
the other hand, we think only of personality and social 
graces, that develops without adequate physical basis. 

If our concept of wealth is that we can have just 
enough to pay the rent and the butcher, we develop 
capacity enough to earn just that. If, however, we 
can think of ourselves as living in a mansion and 
having all we may desire, then we find the law of 
correspondences working to give those to us. If we 
think we are governed by chance, war-conditions, and 

91 



92 The Law of Mind in Action. . 

competition, then that becomes our law. If, again, 
we conceive of ourselves as above conditions, un- 
limited and absolute, then that becomes a fact to us. 
Why? 

All this is true because the Law assumes toward us 
just the attitude we assume toward it. If then our 
highest ideal and faith is that we are sons of God, 
sharing his nature and resources, we have the basis 
for the highest gifts from the Law because we dare to 
conceive more for ourselves. A son has more faith in 
prosperity and his future than a servant. 

Our highest concept, therefore, is our vision of the 

self as at one with the Father in nature and power, 

"I and the Father are one." So writes the Psalmist, "I 
will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence 
cometh my help; my help cometh from the Lord." 
This is plainly the attitude to be assumed by one who> 
himself seeks to become an inspiration and an uplift 
to mankind. He cannot lift up until he first be up- 
lifted. He must first look to the heights, who would 
point out to others the way. He must know the trail 
in the ranges. He must himself stand on a summit. 
He must have been on the Mount of Transfiguration. 
The uplook must precede the uplift. One must know 
the law, to teach it ; the way, to show it ; God, to reveal 
Him. There must be an alliance with the Unseen. Out 
of the hills comes help ; from snow-capped mounts, the 
cooling breeze ; from forest glades, the notes of peace ; 
from rugged peaks, a faith sublime. "The strength 
of the hills is his also." The alliance with the Unseen 



Our Immaculate Conceptions. 93 

must never be forgotten. Where there is no inlet, there 
is no outlet. There is no river without a source, no 
stream without a rising spring. The fountain will not 
spray without the water. The ship will not sail 
without a breeze. Silent is the wheel without the belt ; 
powerless the car without the current ; dead is the lamp 
without the light. But linked with the source, the 
river runs, the fountain sprays, the ship sails, the 
wheel turns and "the lamp giveth light unto all who 
are in the house." We must look up, move up, reach 
up, and then we shall be prepared to lift up. We must 
be in alliance with the Unseen. In that day shall 
supernal forces seize us, possess us, sway us, use us. 
Then, having become the inlet, we shall also become 
the outlet of all there is in God. In that day the power 
of God will be revealed; "the blind will receive their 
sight, and the lame will walk; the leper will be 
cleansed, the poor will have the gospel preached to 
them ; and blessed shall be he who shall not be offended 
in us." These shall be the signs following them that 
believe. But first there must be alliance with the 
Unseen — only the uplifted become an uplift ! 

Thus, to conceive of ourselves as at one with the 
Father is to endow us with "power from on high." 

Let us not forget the reason why. The Law gives 
back to us created, what we think into it as vision. Let 
our visions therefore be high and true! Let them be 
glorified! And let us not forget that this is as true 
whether our ideals be for a perfect character, a perfect 
body, perfect wisdom in our business, or perfect 



94 The Law of Mind in Action. 

happiness. What do you want? Picture it as yours 
now. Dream it into beauty. See it as you would have 
it. The more perfect your vision, the more perfect 
your returns. The perfect vision of faith is the im- 
maculate conception of the pure mind. The Law, with 
infinite intelligence, will body the faith into form. 
Give yourself in faith to the highest visioning of your 
soul. 

"O young mariner, 

Down to the haven 
Call your companions, 

Launch your vessel, 
And crowd your canvas 
And ere it vanishes 

Over the margin, 
After it, follow it, 

Follow the gleam !" 

Realization. 

I am in Alliance with the Unseen. I am one with 
the Father. All that the Father hath is mine. God is 
my light and my salvation. I lift up mine eyes unto 
the hills from whence my help cometh. My help 
cometh from the Lord which made heaven and earth. 
The strength of the hills is mine also. I am son of 
God ; I am heir to all that is. God is All-Power ; there- 
fore I have strength. God is All-Wisdom; therefore 
I am guided in all my affairs. God is All-Supply; 
therefore I shall not want. God is All-Love, therefore 



Our Immaculate Conceptions. 95 

I am filled with the highest love and affection. I can- 
not have a desire but God supplies it. His eye is on 
the sparrow ; and I know He cares for me. I am com- 
pletely satisfied in my consciousness of the Indwelling 
Presence. I will fear no evil for Thou art with me. 
Always and forever I am supplied. (In this high con- 
sciousness, conceive of the good you desire and hold 
it up to the Creative Mind and expect it to come into 
you. Hold it in consciousness for a while. Feel it 
deeply. I do believe. I am satisfied. Conclude by 
saying the Lord's prayer with deep feeling and 
thought. You thus get down into Creative Feeling. 
Let it be done unto you. Now give thanks.) It is 
done. "I thank Thee, Father, that Thou hearest me 
always." 



LESSON XVII. 
INTENSIFIED CONSCIOUSNESS. 

CONSCIOUSNESS of truth is the great goal of 
the metaphysician. He must have a deep-seated 
perception of reality or his word is unbacked by power. 
His consciousness is the weapon with which he puts 
to flight the whole evil array of wrong thoughts, 
wrong concepts, and fears with all their attendant dis- 
eases and limitations. It is his shield against doubt 
and discord. It is the standard around which he 
rallies all the forces of good and God. Sword and 
shield and standard, consciousness is simply knowing 
in your heart that all is good, all is God, and that your 
word is the word of authority to the Law. It is what 
the centurion recognized in Jesus when he said, "Sir, 
I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my 
roof; but only say the word and my servant shall be 
healed. For I also am a man under authority, having 
under myself soldiers : and I say to this one, 'Go/ and 
he goeth ; and to another, 'Come,' and he cometh ; and 
to my servant, 'Do this,' and he doeth it." Without 
fully understanding it, the centurion voiced the law of 
consciousness. You must recognize that the Law is 
your servant and you must feel that when you speak 
the word, it will obey you; even more, that it has 
obeyed you. 

96 



Intensified Consciousness. 97 

This consciousness is not merely intellectual know- 
ledge of the Law ; it is far more than that ; it is the 
feeling of truth. "As a man thinketh in his heart so 
is he." Every means, therefore, that can be em- 
ployed to intensify this consciousness should be 
eagerly sought. And nothing is more desirable than 
a whole-souled, hearty commitment of oneself to truth. 
We may liken life to men in boats. One clings to 
the shore and his vessel breaks to pieces on the rocks. 
One sails up and down in the harbor, catching an oc- 
casional helpful breeze in his canvas as he steers for 
different points and arrives at length — nowhere, or 
else merely at the point of departure. One commits 
himself to God and the sea, and sets his sail and drives 
before the favoring winds to the island of treasures. 
A thorough commitment to the new way is absolutely 
essential. A half truth is often a whole lie; and a 
timid advance is the forerunner of defeat. Says 
Goethe, 

"Thus indecision brings its own delays, 
And days are lost, tormenting over days." 

The more passionately you commit yourself to the 
highway of health, the more boldly you sail the sea of 
faith, the more certain are you of success. Jesus says, 
"From the days of John the Baptist until now the 
Kingdom of Heaven sufrereth violence, and the violent 
take it by storm." The eager and enthusiastic follow- 
ers of truth seize the Kingdom — win it as a prize of 
war. 



98 The Law of Mind in Action. 

Such a bold, violent commitment to the new way of 
faith is essential to the great progress of the soul. It 
is thus out of tempestuous abandonment that we get 
the rock-like Peter; the strong-souled St. Augustine; 
the towering Luther; the enthusiastic Wesley. Thus 
do we get our Caesars, plunging into the Danube to 
be baptized into kingship; our Cromwells to sit on 
thrones; our Washingtons to create nations; our 
Grants to save the causes of the people. 

What is true here is true of the way of healing. 
"Commit thy ways unto the Lord, trust also in Him ; 
and He shall bring it to pass." This is the supreme 
test, the indispensable condition of success, that one 
place the matter entirely on the plane of faith. Believe ! 
Believe ! Believe ! Feel deeply ! Know ! "Knowledge is 
power." When you feel so deeply that you know, and 
know you know, then at that moment you are half 
way up the heights. In a little while you will stand at 
the summit. You are well and it is a godlike wellness. 
There is no danger of a relapse. Emblazon on the 
shield of your soul this one word, "Credo," I believe. 
You need no other motto. 

The Reasons for Faith. 
We always attempt to explain as clearly as we can 
not only the fact but the process. Why is faith 
essential to success ? If you will examine with us for 
a moment a phenomenon of hypnotism you will clearly 
see the reason for faith. Of course this is illustra- 
tive only. Hypnotism is an inferior form of mental 
activity and should never be confounded with the 



Intensified Consciousness. 99 

higher forces of mental and spiritual methods of 
healing. In hypnotism the objective mind sleeps, in 
spiritual healing the mind is awake. But herein we 
find a good illustration furnished by the well-known 
educator, Dr. G. Stanley Hall. Take a long gas pipe 
from which project fifty lighted jets. Then turn out 
the lights one by one. The lights that remain burn 
all the more brilliantly, and the last jet blazes with a 
powerful radiance. A hypnotized man represents the 
same principle. A part of his mental and physical 
forces are shut off or put to sleep. Upon suggestion 
of the operator he now centers all his vital forces on 
one part of the body. He feels with greater intensity ; 
he hears as no others present can hear ; he remembers 
with startling accuracy. Tell him that a fire burns on 
his skin, he is in an agony of pain. Nor is this 
imagination. Blood and nerves actually respond to 
these suggestions. On awakening the patient recalls 
and performs orders given him in hypnotic sleep. 
But the point to note is the illustration of the cen- 
tered thought, the intensity of feeling. 

In the deep feeling of a perfect faith all the mental 
and bodily energies center on the focal point of the 
disease. Every blood vessel, nerve and energy of the 
body plies about the affected part with concerted zeal. 
A very torrent of activity may be thought of as going 
on there. On the mental model, the forces build. Each 
little workman says, "Brother, be of good cheer" ; and 
they "help every one his neighbor." So the revital- 
izing, renewing, recreative processes go on. It is 



100 The Law of Mind in Action. 

truth, therefore, that there is no disease but can be 
healed by the powerful emotions of a perfect faith. 

Organic disease, we are told, cannot be cured. 
"Medical science and God stand abashed in its pres- 
ence. God is able to heal functional disease but not 
organic." Cast this thought from your mind. "With 
God," said Jesus, "all things are possible." When 
medical science has reached its utmost limit, you may 
find "that man's extremity is God's opportunity." 
"Trust also in Him ; and He will bring it to pass." Make 
your extremity God's opportunity by the intensity of 
your faith. Do not try by will-power to cause the 
structure of your body to change, or function in a 
different way. This is auto-suggestion. It is not 
powerful enough. Throw yourself on God. Declare 
your positive faith in God. Intensify it. Storm the 
throne of God. The violent take the Kingdom of 
heaven by storm. Have a passionate faith. The 
woman of Jesus' parable by her importunity prevailed 
over the judge. The man by his importunity secured 
the loaves of bread at the midnight hour. When the 
deep shadows of gathering darkness fall upon you, 
remember this : You can by persistent intensity secure 
the coveted good. And note this, that such faith is 
of greater value to soul than to body and that there- 
fore you are not asking contrary to the will of God 
but in harmony with his plan. 

"Go on, true soul, 
You'll win the prize, 
You'll reach the goal." 



Intensified Consciousness. 101 

Realization. 

"The Lord is my light and my salvation, Whom 
then shall I fear ? The Lord is the strength of my life, 
Of whom shall I be afraid?" 

I can pass through no experience where Spirit is 
not with me. I can have no accident when Spirit 
protects me. I can have no sorrow that Spirit cannot 
comfort me. I am kept in a serene and perfect love. 
I am held in the Mind of God. I cannot be lost, for 
there is no place outside of Divine Mind. I am sur- 
rounded by All-Good. I am embraced by All-Good. 
I am conscious of All^Good. All around me, in me, 
and through me is the Love that will not let me go. 
Though I walk in the shadows, He will be my light. 
Though I sail upon the sea, He will be my compass. 
Though I be alone, He will be my companion. Whom, 
then, shall I fear? I shall fear nothing and no one. 
Death can be no more, for the soul that knows that life 
is all. I can walk in the valley of the shadow, but 
life walks with me. I fear no evil. I am life ; God is 
Life : all is Life ; and I go on in faith and confidence. 



LESSON XVIII. 
IS EVIL A POWER? 

"God is all in all" 

THIS is the philosophy fundamental to Christian 
Healing. This is the healer's confidence. This is 
the truth whose realization is most essential to the 
acquirement of health. We must know that the 
eternal substratum of the universe is not material but 
spiritual, not temporal, but eternal. At the founda- 
tion is God. As the plant can never grow unless in the 
seed is the germ of life, in the sap is the principle of 
existence, so the universe must have at its heart the 
living presence of the eternal spirit. As the Apostle 
Paul says, "All must be subject to him that God may 
be all in all." As the poet has said, God is 

"Above all things, below all things, 

Within all things, around all things, 

Within all, but not shut in, 

Around all, but not shut out. 

Above all as Revealer, 

Below all as Sustainer, 

Within all as newness of life." 

This is above Pantheism, because it not only identi- 
fies God with the universe but it proves Him to be 
more than His universe. Again "God is love," there/- 

102 



Is Evil a Power ? 103 

fore He must have an object of His affection, so that 
man, too, has an individual part in God, as this object 
of affection. God has personal attributes because He 
is conscious of Himself as loving and directing His 
power to beneficent ends. 

How wonderful and significant this is ! There is 
nothing but the divine presence everywhere, there is 
no real power except that of God. There is only one 
world; it is God's world. The only real world is the 
world that exists in the mind of God and in the mind 
of the individual. We live in a spiritual universe in 
which God is supreme. 

This means, of course, that there is no real power 
opposed to God. Jesus voiced this truth in many ways. 
He quoted the commandment, "Hear, O Israel, the 
Lord thy God, the Lord is One." The pain and sick- 
ness and distress and want of the "little flock" were 
not due to the power of some evil force, but to the 
thralldom of fear and worry. Remove these things, 
and at once the law of good would operate for men as 
for the lilies of the field. It was not one power — the 
Power of Good — contending with another — the Power 
of Evil. It was the elimination, the annihilation of a 
mental mood, that was to open the way for God's 
sunshine to fall. 

This then is the simple philosophy fundamental to 
this system of thought, recognition of which does so 
much to open up the way to health and peace and 
supply of every kind. The only power is the God- 
power. There is no real power to wrong or pain in 



104 The Law of Mind in Action. 

themselves. Truth is the only reality. Evil has only 
so much power as we attribute to it. With Jesus we 
may affirm that Satan has no part in us. 

Thus as darkness is legislated out of existence by 
the introduction of light, so evil is reduced to zero by 
the presence of the contrary thought. All this is in 
harmony with what we have learned about the Law, 
that man makes his own universe by his thinking; for 
the creative substance is plastic to his thought and 
takes the form and quality which his thought gives to 
it (Lesson VII.) The original substance is without 
qualities of its own, being merely electronic energy, 
which is simply force created by the activity of the 
Divine Will. It is like the wax that awaits the imprint 
of the die or the marble that has not been chiseled 
upon by the hand and mind of the sculptor. But original 
substance is moulded into form and takes character 
through the most subtle of instruments, the thought 
of our mind. It becomes to us just what we think into 
it, just as the mirror takes on the form and color we 
give to it. If, therefore, we think limitation, we get its 
reflection in the lack of things ; if we think supply, we 
get that. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he" 
in his person. 

What Evil Means. 

It is seen accordingly that evil lies in the conscious- 
ness and there it lies and lies. "But just what do we 
mean by evil?" is now a natural question. When we 
use the word "evil" of objective experiences, we refer 



Is Evil a Power ? 105 

to "physical evil" such as hardship, pain, poverty, un- 
pleasant surroundings. When we use it of thought, 
we refer to mental attitudes and experiences which 
are due to wrong concepts and choices of the will. 
This latter is called by the theologians, "moral evil," 
and they say it is "some impulse or suggestion that 
was not worthy to be acted upon but was acted upon 
by beings who had the power to do otherwise . . . Sin 
first came by the act of created free spirits willing 
wrongly." (Christian Theology, page 155, Wm. N. 
Clarke.) 

But the theologian fails to perceive two significant 
facts : first, that the choice of the impulse or sugges- 
tion is not due to wilful wickedness but to ignorance, 
since no one would make choices involving suffering 
and loss if he fully realized and felt the force of the 
disasters that follow upon them. This ignorance of 
action would be avoided by depending upon the 
intuitive guidance of the spirit; but failure to depend 
on this guidance is not due to "moral evil" or wicked- 
ness but again is due to ignorance. Second, it must 
6e perceived that the objective experience in pain and 
poverty is but a reflex of the wrong mental attitude or 
thought. To be sure, a physical body, to be physical 
at all, must have the power of sensation and it must be 
possible for it to have the capacity of unpleasant sensa- 
tion, since such sensations are to warn us that we are 
out of harmony with our environment and the law, and 
that we must get right or perish. But the mind that 
is stayed on God or is in harmony with the Law will 



106 The Law of Mind in Action. 

intuitively perceive what is necessary to be done and 
so will be kept from violating the law of nature. No 
accident ever befell Jesus because He was in perfect 
accord with the Father. There are many today who 
thus "clothe themselves safely round with Infinite 
Love and Wisdom." "There shall no evil befall thee, 
neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling." 
Thus we perceive that so-called "evil" of mind or 
body is simply the effect of wrong choices which are 
due to ignorance; but ignorance is not a moral fault. 
But the Law is no respecter of persons and if we think 
limitation and sickness and accident, we shall external- 
ize it. Therefore when we find ourselves surrounded 
by external limitations which are unpleasant, we must 
realize that they are but the reflex of our thought. 

Good and Evil Both Real — But Effects. 

The question now arises as to whether health and 
wealth are not more real than sickness and poverty. 
Neither is more real than the other. Both are the 
same primary substance, energy moulded by thought. 
We can think one into manifestation as easily as the 
other. We realize that this is quite contrary to the 
usual concept of the newer teaching. It is said, "Evil, 
want, sickness, and so on are due to the lack of some- 
thing. Poverty is a lack of wealth, but lack of some- 
thing is zero ; therefore, there is no poverty. Ignor- 
ance is lack of wisdom, but the lack of a thing is 
zero, therefore there is no ignorance" ; and so on, thus 
claiming that the negative is a lie and therefore the 



Is Evil a Power f 107 

experience is unreal. I am quoting my own former 
views, for I thought the same thing before I thought 
clearly enough. It seemed to me that when one thinks 
health and wealth he gets it; but that when he thinks 
sickness and poverty he doesn't get it, he only thinks 
he gets it. This was a mistake. What man sows in 
thought, that shall he also reap, be it pleasant or un- 
pleasant. All effects are as real as their causes and 
"the thing exists in the thought as well as the thought 
in the thing." Again it was a mistake for me to say, 
for example, that "darkness, being the lack of light, is 
therefore nothing." The fact remains that the ex- 
perience of darkness is just as real as that of light. If 
it were not, I could not be conscious of it. One cannot 
be conscious of that which is not. If, therefore, I am 
conscious of poverty or sickness, my consciousness is 
as true as my consciousness of wealth or health; or 
else I am conscious of neither. But I am conscious of 
both. What is needed, therefore, is not that I should 
change the fact but that I should change the thought 
that produces the fact. 

Again it was wrong for me to say that there can be 
the absence of something and therefore a nothing. If 
experience is real enough for me to cognize it and I 
call it "nothing," I am saying that there is a "nothing" 
as opposed to the Something which is God or Infinite ; 
and I am therefore positing a dual universe and limit- 
ing the Limitless. This is impossible. Therefore my 
experience of health, wealth, and love, or my experi- 
ence of poverty, sickness and unhappiness are equally 



108 The Law of Mind in Action. 

real. But they are both effects of my thinking. They 
are the reflex of my thought. My thought is the 
cause which takes original substance and moulds it 
into these forms and experiences. The result is not 
to be termed either good or evil ; neither is the thought. 
It is not a question of morals but of wisdom. If, there- 
fore, I do not like the effect, I must change the 
thought. And in order that I may not need to go 
through all the awful experiences of pain and want in 
order to learn, I can draw near to the heart of God 
Who knows all from the beginning; and "the spirit 
shall teach me all things and guide me into the way of 
truth." 

God Not to Blame for Effects of Wrong 
Thinking. 

The question is always asked, "Where did the first 
thought of evil come from ? and why did God allow evil 
and suffering in the world ? Why does He permit war, 
famine, and death?" And the answer is: He does not 
permit it. He has nothing to do with it. He gives us 
the power to think as individuals. He gives us free 
will and choice and then leaves it up to us as to what 
we shall think. If we choose to think in terms of 
limitation that is our affair, but we must bear the con- 
sequences of the Law that we get what we think. We 
must realize that there is supply enough in the world 
to satisfy the needs of all. If we fail to take it, it is not 
the fault or work of God. If we bring pain and loss 
upon ourselves, it does not involve Him. 



Is Evil a Power? 109 

We must remember that these effects which we do 
not like are due to thinking in terms of limitation, and 
as God never thinks in those terms He cannot cognize 
their effects. In other words, it is a question if God 
knows there are wars and death and all the rest of 
these things. "The Lord is of too pure an eye to 
behold iniquity." But did not Jesus say, "Not a 
sparrow falleth to the ground but your Heavenly 
Father seeth it?" Exactly so, but He does not see it 
dying, He sees it alive. God is spirit, He deals with the 
spirit, and in spirit there is no death. As Jesus quoted 
"God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. I 
am the God of Abraham." Unto Him, all are alive. 

The Source of Wrong Thought. 

It becomes clear therefore that the thought of limita- 
tion is to be blamed on no one but ourselves. If we 
do not like our world and our environment, we must 
change it by our change of thought. Our environment 
is of our own making and we can move into the scenes 
and circumstances that fit our mental outlooks the 
moment we arrive at the consciousness that will draw 
us to our desired good. Heaven is a state of conscious- 
ness as passible on this plane as any other. Two 
people on the same street often live in worlds that are 
as wide apart as the spheres because in the case of one 
there is constant thought of ill with its physical cor- 
respondences, in the other there is the constant thought 
of good. So we realize that the power to choose what 
he shall think and how he shall love constitutes the 



110 The Law of Mind in Action. 

very vital spark of man's individuality. So too he can 
give or withhold his love from the Supreme Spirit. 
For God to have endowed him with less than choice 
would have been to make him a piece of mechan- 
ism. But he must pay for the freedom that he 
enjoys by the suffering that follows wrong think- 
ing and failure to love. And his wrong thinking is due 
to his failure to love or establish harmony between 
himself and the Infinite Wisdom. For when he with- 
holds his love he is out of harmony with wisdom and 
cannot be guided by those intuitive processes which 
keep him from making choices which plunge him into 
so much pain and unhappiness. 

The secret, therefore, of correct living is not found 
in the study of the negative or so-called "evil" but of 
the positive or divine life, love and wisdom. If our 
ideals make us, as we have found in another chapter 
(Lesson XVI), then we rise out of limitations by a 
choice of higher ideals. In the presence of light, 
darkness disappears ; the rising sun has never looked 
upon darkness for as it rises darkness flees before it. 
Love has never looked upon hate; for when love 
comes, hate disappears. Harmony has never heard 
discord, for there is none in the presence of perfect 
wisdom. Wealth can experience no poverty for there 
is no lack where supply is abundant. Joy knows no 
sorrow for happiness is complete mistress wherever 
it comes. Each of these qualities is then the whole 
truth for us ; truth is indivisible, and therefore their 






Is Evil a Power? Ill 

presence must be perfect and complete, and nothing 
else is possible when they are there. 

Conclusion. 

The value of this study therefore is apparent. The 
way to cure all so-called ills is the recognition that 
"God is all in all." We must not be like the doctor 
who studies the dead body to find out about life. To 
study death will not reveal life. We knew a physician 
who made a profound study of insanity and was so im- 
pressed with the thought of it that he lost his reason. 
It seems well-established that those who specialize in 
disease usually die of their specialty, a belief in that 
which is negative. Again it is well known that materia 
medica rarely cures cancer and similar diseases be- 
cause it deals with the disease; while mental science 
daily cures large numbers of such cases because it does 
not see the "case" but only the perfect expression of 
life. We have known tumors to disappear in a night, 
cancers and other growths to drop away bodily by the 
realisation of the positive element, or the presence of 
life in its wholeness. 

We can come to only one conclusion: the way to cure 
the ills, and wants, and evils of life, is to forget them 
and in their place to set the mind on the beautiful, the 
good and the true. These become your ideal and auto- 
matically solve your problem. Whenever you are pre- 
sented with a problem of lack, in anything, simply 
select the good or positive factor which before was 
lacking and center your mind on that to the exclusion 



112 The Law of Mind in Action. 

of everything else. Like the baneful dream at night, 
like the nightmare with its hideous shadows of un- 
reality, all that is false and wrong and ill and tragic 
flees when we wake from the sleep of ignorance and 
fear to the truth that God is all in all, and beside Him 
there is none other. This was the supreme teaching 
of the Master Metaphysician. The supreme metaphy- 
sician is he who knows in his heart that there is only 
good and only God. 

Realization. 

I am not dismayed. God is all; and there is none 
other than He. He guards, He keeps, He holds, He 
loves. No evil shall befall me, no plague shall come 
nigh my dwelling. He gives His angels to keep charge 
over me in all my ways. I am set free in the con- 
sciousness of truth. I am at one with the Father in 
consciousness of life. I see only the good and the 
true. I will never allow myself to see anything 
else. God is all. I carry away with me in my heart 
this song that sings in my soul all day: I admit no 
thought of ill or want or fear ; I admit only truth and 
love and life. These are God's ; and they are mine. 
God is the only power there is. And all that the Father 
hath is mine. I accept it and am whole. I give thanks. 
So be it. 



LESSON XIX 
THE THING I FEAR. 

4£>T*HE thing I greatly feared has come upon me." 
A This is a true saying. But why ? Because that 
is exactly the way the Law works. The Universal 
Creative Intelligence takes the strongest impress of 
our thought as its model and begins to create each 
thing after its kind. If fear is our thought then that 
is our model and it is done unto us as we think. As 
we saw in the lesson on "Evil," the Law is neutral 
and impersonal, and having no choice of its own, it 
acts upon our choice. Our thought and faith are the 
model on which the Law builds and if we wish a 
beautiful house we must have beautiful plans. We can- 
not expect a "mansion in heaven" if our plans call for 
a dog-house on earth. 

We are told by the psychologist that every mental 
action has a corresponding physical reaction of some 
sort. Then to hold fear in our thought is to cause it 
to materialize in the same way. Disease is the thing 
that appears on the body to correspond to some image 
of thought held by us either consciously or uncons- 
ciously. 

Usually we ourselves can trace our trouble back to 
its mental source, but not always, because it is often an 
unconscious thing. Frequently we find that the image 

113 



114 The Law of Mind in Action, 

was produced by a shock of some kind as in the death 
of or accident to one we love. Or perhaps to some story 
we have read or heard. Or it may have been due to 
the race belief or suggestion of fear and disease and 
belief in it. Or it may be due to our general way of 
looking at things without any specific or special 
thought. Or it may be due to some current prevail- 
ing belief in sickness as in an epidemic. One who is 
sensitive to mental impressions is open to the most 
subtle suggestion from the many minds about him* 
In the case of the great influenza epidemic which was 
due to chaotic world thinking, fear, worry and hatred, 
we found many minds open to it. Yet, though large 
numbers died of this fear-thought, we know that those 
who came under mental treatment were easily and 
readily cured. There were cases in every degree and 
progress of the influenza, yet they yielded readily to 
the treatment. By realizing the perfect peace and 
calm in the Divine Mind in which we live, move and 
have our being, and which lives us, moves us, and is 
the self of us, large numbers of people were cured in 
one treatment ; and even while they were telephoning 
for relief, they were healed. 

Our every word, thought and feeling thus finds 
expression in our body or personality. Each word 
or thought is a ruler, though it be king for but an 
instant ; and the law is its servant. Our personality 
is the aggregate of our thinking expressed in form. 
The totality of our thinking makes us what we are. 
The aggregate of the thinking of a normal person is 



The Thing I Fear. 115 

healthy. Therefore, he has health. The chronic in- 
valid is one whose mind consciously or unconsciously 
dwells more on disease than health. 

Some people appear always unlucky. They expect 
it ; and the law works out their misfortune to its bitter 
conclusion. Others are proverbially "lucky." They 
expect luck and good fortune therefore smiles upon 
them. Our attitudes of mind therefore control our 
destiny. Men who succeed are found to be those who 
expect success and men who fail are those who most 
fear failure. Of course in any particular case it is 
not always possible to trace out the full working- of the 
law of cause and effect, because so many elements 
work in. Often the habitually fearful have days of 
hope and the habitually hopeful have days of fear. 
What All of Us Need to Do, Therefore, Is to Bring 
up the Aggregate of Our Thinking for Health, 
Wealth, and Love So That It Shall Outbalance Any 
Possible Amount of Negative Thinking. 

We all need to bring our thought up to the highest 
point of cheer that we possibly can so that we can 
counteract the currents of fear into which we may 
for a time allow ourselves to be swept. 

And into these currents ever y one "of us tends at 
times to be drawn through a^fafse id|$ of sympathy. 
We allow ourselves t#'-* T ieel sorry" about ourselves or 
someone else^The heart of great compassion naturally, 
goes out in loving regard for those who are in the 
path of error, sorrow, or loss. This is right and na- 
tural. But many of us allow this sentiment to degener- 



116 The Law of Mind in Action. 

ate into pity, not for them, but for their misfortune. 
Instead of doing what we can to alleviate the suffer- 
ing, we simply condole and "sympathize" with the 
error, thus allowing ourselves to feel the reality of 
"evil"' or negation and so making ourselves at one 
with it. Pity of This Kind Is Evil. Do Not Indulge 
in It. Do Not Allow Yourself to Be Indulged in It. 
How easy it is for us to want others to sympathize 
with us, to pity us, to feel sorry about us! It is not 
only a great sign of weakness, it is also very selfish, 
and it opens us to all their negative thinking about 
us. "I won't have anybody pity me," said one of the 
noblest women I ever knew when she was working 
far beyond her ordinary strength. With an invalid 
husband, a family, and great responsibilities, she would 
yet not allow that mental attitude to be held toward 
her. She rose at length above her difficulties. 

Jesus made a remarkable statement at one time. He 
said, "The Prince of this World cometh and findeth 
nothing in me." What did He mean? He meant that 
no thought of lack, or evil, or fear could enter His 
mind because there was nothing in Him to attract it. 
The negative thought comes blowing along but it 
cannot "blow in" on the mind that is positive for there 
is nothing in that mind to attract or hold it. Hence 
evil cannot become a reality to that soul. This is the 
reason why we should place the mind on the highest 
things because it holds the mind positive only to the 
best and the worst can "have no part in us" for it 
does not "find anything in us." 



The Thing I Fear. 117 

Will this truth help us to get rid of our fears ? I do 
not know. We need to be warned against wrong 
thinking. We need to know that our fears will des- 
troy us — but then We Want to Forget It. We 
Must Not Allow Ourselves to Say, "Well, I Ex- 
pect to Be Destroyed by These Negative Things". 
Rather we should forget it all by turning our thought 
to the highest and finest things in which we can find 
interest. "Wherefore dost thou doubt, O ye of little 
faith?" asks the Great Teacher. "Cheer up," He says 
constantly. "Be not anxious for your life, what ye 
shall eat; nor yet for your body, what 'ye shall put 
on. For the life is more than the food and the body 
than the raiment. Consider the ravens, that they sow 
not, neither reab : which have no store-chamber nor 
barn; and God feedeth them: of how much more 
value are ye than the birds ! And which of you by 
being anxious can add one cubit unto the measure of 
his life. Consider the lilies, how they grow : they 
toil not, neither do they spin ; yet I say unto 1 you, Even 
Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of 
these. But if God so clothe the grass which today is 
and tomorrow is cast into the oven ; how much more 
shall He clothe you, O ye of little faith ! . . . Your 
Father knoweth. . . Fear no*-, little flock, it is your 
Father's pleasure to give you the kingdom,." 
It is faith and love that solves our problems- 
It is love. Love walks on the waves to still the 
turbulent sea of life. Love quiets the storm and 
brings the frail vessel to a safe harbor. Love says, 



118 The Law of Mind in Action. 

"It is I, be not afraid." It is love that says, "Lo, I am 
with you alway, even unto the ends of the earth." 

It is love that lifts the "burden, 

Love that lightens every task ; 
Fear not thou, but cease thy struggle, 

Love will give you all you ask. 
Love is God, and all about you 

Breathes His presence on the air, 
Unseen hands are raised to help you 

By the Presence everywhere. 

Love is life ; its rising surges 

Sweep in tides around the wreck, 
Lift and bear it to the ocean 

With the captain on the deck. 
Thou the captain ; God, the ocean, 

Love the power that moves the tide : 
Pilot past the bar and breakers, 

Love is acting as thy guide. 

Realization. 

God is in His heaven and all is right with the world. 
I will fear no evil for Thou art with me. No evil shall 
befall me and no plague come nigh my dwelling. He 
has given His angels charge over me to keep me in all 
my ways.- They shall bear me up in their hands lest 
I dash my foot against a stone, I am kept by that 
perfect love that casts out all fear. Fear cannot come 
near me because my mind is stayed on the highest and 



The Thing I Fear. 119 

best. (Then argue it all out with yourself. How 
can I escape from this thing? Surely it cannot be by 
fearing it.) I look you mentally in the face and defy 
you, discouragement and fear. You have no part in 
me for I am above you. I will not pity myself because 
that only makes my fear more real. (Suppose it is 
some feeling that you have a dreadful disease upon 
you. To fear it will only make it worse. There is 
no disease known that will not yield to truth and faith 
of those who are determined to be well, and the way 
to get well is to stop fearing and go to thinking health- 
ful and hopeful thoughts.) I know that all power is 
given unto me in heaven and on earth. I will use this 
God-power in me and I am thankful for it. Thoughts 
of self-pity and fear have no influence with me. I will 
not allow any one to pity me for that will only fasten 
this thing upon me. The Prince of this world, fear 
and sickness, comes to me but they do not find a wel- 
come here. There is nothing in me to give them a 
welcome. Yes, perfect love casts out all fear from me. 
(If it is fear of business failure, treat it in the same 
way. To fear it is to bring it on you. You cannot 
do one bit of good by worrying. That will only reduce 
your strength in an emergency.) He that clothes the 
lily will look after my interests. I am safe in the 
assurance that if this particular thing should fail, 
there is something better to come for me. (We have 
known of many cases where present failure was simply 
the prelude to a greater success. Sometimes the 
accumulated thoughts of failure and sorrow or in- 



120 The Law of Mind in Action. 

harmony have been swept away by flood or fire or 
bankruptcy only to sweep the mind clean for higher 
attainment. Thousands have thus begun at the bot- 
tom only to climb still higher in the new work. To 
fear failure will not help. Have faith. This is the 
one great essential. Have faith in yourself. Have 
faith in others. Have faith in the future. Have faith 
in God. Courage and faith are half the battle. De- 
termination, will, and work are the other half. You 
can if you think you can.) I know I can succeed and 
I will succeed. I am success. I am courage. I am 
faith. I am the victory. Faith is the victory that 
overcomes the world, and I have all the faith there is. 
(Then concentrate your thought for a moment on the 
positive thing you want. Make up your mind that 
you will have the best and the best only. If you do 
not know now just what course to follow, there is a 
Mind in you that does. Depend on it. Resolve to be 
lead by the Divine Wisdom that speaks through you. 
Step out in faith on the new venture for health, wealth, 
or love and expect great things. The spirit in you 
will soon lead you into the best.) Now let this good 
come to me. Let it come in the best possible way. 
Let me be lead by Divine Wisdom. Let me be pros- 
pered. Thou givest me above all I ask or think, and 
I am satisfied that all is well with me. I render thanks. 
(Spend a moment on the Divine Wisdom within you, 
and go your way with a song in your heart. Let It 
Be Done Unto Thee Even as Thou Wilt.) So be it ! 



LESSON XX. 
NOTHING MATTERS. 

SO many of the ills of the world are due to hurt 
feelings and worry over what other people say 
and do that we need a new motto. Let us try this, 
"Nothing matters." Jesus exclaims, "What is that 
to thee? Follow thou me." That has nothing to do 
with you unless you allow it. Why do you allow 
yourself to worry and fuss if someone seems prefer- 
red before you ? There is enough for you to do. You 
have your place somewhere. What does it matter 
to you if your neighbor does act unneighborly ? He 
won't have the opportunity to hurt you unless you 
care. Why should you go about with an aching 
heart because people won't take your advice, or insist 
on doing things in a different way from that which 
you approve? Will that Change them any? Suppose 
that some member of your family is a bit uncouth or 
even rude, don't you see that you are only aggravat- 
ing it by "caring?" When you show your indifference, 
not defiantly, but by really not "allowing it to matter," 
you will see the things change. You say, business is 
going wrong and I must worry! Worry will only 
hasten the end. You need to save yourself so that 
you will have a clear mind to act in case of emergency 
or a change for the better. Say, "nothing matters." 

121 



122 The Law of Mind in Action. 

Sensitive-minded people are always undergoing some 
new form of mental torture. And the thing for which 
they suffer doesn't matter much after all. And they 
wouldn't suffer at all, if they would refuse to be an- 
noyed. And if you really do care very much, you 
cannot remedy things by "caring." You are really 
being negative and just suffering. You can never get 
the most out of life by depending on anybody or any- 
thing for your happiness. You must be free of depend- 
ence on all. Otherwise you will be subject to chance 
and change. You will become a victim of circum- 
stance. You will truly enjoy friends and things only 
as you know how to live without them. Shall you 
make a necessity of your friend? Then you make 
him your servant. Rather will you say, "I will extract 
the full joy of this hour. Today is all there is. If 
tomorrow he goes away or seeks companionship else- 
where, then we have already extracted all there is of 
value between us. To companion with him now would 
be to fan coals to a glow to make me think there is a 
fire. It does not matter; I must go on to new exper- 
iences." 

So, too, you must know how to live without things 
or you are become their slave. Rather should you 
extract from all the essence of joy for the hour and as 
the bee sips the nectar and passes on, so you pass from 
good to good because no one thing has become a neces- 
sity to you. Take everything but cling to nothing; 
then indeed do things become your servant, not you 
their slave. 



Nothing Matters. 123 

To fear loss, to feel hurt, to mourn over that which 
is passing is to give reality to the negative side of 
life, and to draw greater evil in its train. By the law 
of attraction we draw outer things to correspond to 
our inner thought and feeling, and soon the thing we 
greatly feared has come upon us. Rather let us say, 
"What is that to me ? I really don't care. Now I start 
forgetting." Then we are ready for positive thinking. 
Then we put up to the Creative Mind the image of 
the good we desire and the law of correspondences 
will bring it to us. We claim from the law anything 
we desire from friends to fortune, but we do not de- 
mand this particular friend or that identical fortune. 
That is hypnotism and dictation to the law as to how 
it shall work. That might be to demand something 
that will bring us hurt. Rather must we hold up the 
perfect idea of the good we seek and let Divine Mind 
specialize it for us and manifest it in form. 

We must follow the command, "Follow thou me." 
We are to follow not after the negative, but after the 
positive ; we are to seek first the kingdom of con- 
sciousness, the inner spirit and faith in life, and all 
things shall be added unto us. 

"Let's start forgetting! 
There are so many things to lay away 
In graves — dead hates and fears, and doubts 

that flay, 
And all these little faults scarce worth a 



124 The Law of Mind in Action. 

There are so many black days we have 

known ! 
There is no use regretting! 

Let's try forgetting. 

Let's start forgetting! 
A thought of envy is no pleasant guest, 
And hatred nourished leaves no peace or rest ; 
A tear's no thing to treasure ; and no strife 
Becomes a corner stone to fuller life. 

Away with grief and fretting ! 

Let's start forgetting." 

Realization. 

I am now entered into the secret place of the Most 
High. I am resting in the presence of Spirit. The 
world is shut out. I am shut in the temple of my soul. 
I am in touch with all that is. I am drawing from the 
springs of life and peace and plenty. I am waiting 
on the Lord that He may renew my strength. My mind 
is open, my soul is receptive, my body receives the 
healing touch. In this vast quiet of spirit I am un- 
afraid and undisturbed. No evil can befall me here. 
Nothing negative matters, for it has no real power 
and I am not afraid of it. I see only the good, I hear 
only the good. Now everything seems good and 
beautiful to me. I trust in the restoring and creative 
power of spirit. I have faith in God and I am sat- 
isfied. I give thanks. 



LESSON XXI. 
COURAGE REGAINED. 

LIFE is not in the body but in the spirit. Its length 
is not to be measured by the physical or animal 
strength but by the spirit within. People who have 
lived to "a ripe old age" have by no means been just 
those who started out with a robust physique. The 
athlete is a type of manhood, but not the highest type. 
Manhood consists in other things than the body. The 
chief concern of metaphysics is not to get the body well 
but to get the mind to realize its wellness, and to real- 
ize the inner sources of life. When this is accom- 
plished fully, the body will take care of itself. So 
why should you be discouraged because you do not 
have all the physical vigor you desire at the present 
time ? It will come to you of itself when you get your 
mind right. And physical vigor is not necessarily 
in the size of the muscles. It is a well-known fact 
that the will of man prolongs the life beyond the usual 
measure. Even if you have long periods of "the ups 
and downs" of physical well-being before you realize 
perfect health, that should not discourage you. You 
will live just as long and the experiences through 
which you are now passing may bring you into a 
clearer recognition of some of the truths you want to 
know. 

125 



126 The Law of Mind in Action. 

And no one should be discouraged because he has 
failed to make steady and consistent progress in any- 
thing, whether physically, mentally, or spiritually. The 
path of human life usually lies in the canyons as well 
as upon the mountain peak and there are valleys of 
vision as well as mountains of vision as the Bible shows 
us. The man in the valley can see the stars even as 
the man on the mountain. This does not mean that 
we should be content with the narrower views of the 
valley; but it does show that even at the beginning 
of the course we have inspiration to endeavor for we 
have a star of vision from the very first step. 

History and science concur in showing that progress, 
mental, physical and spiritual, comes through a process 
much like the rising of a tide. The waves roll in on 
the beach and recede, roll and recede; and the tide 
gains on the land almost imperceptibly. Yet each 
succeeding ambitious wave hurls itself forward a 
little farther than any that has gone before, and as 
hour follows hour the high point in the tide is finally 
reached. A study of botany reveals this process in 
the growth of plants. We are told that the plant shoots 
upwards for a way, then crouches down or draws 
back as though to conserve its strength. Afterward it 
repeats the process — and so it grows. Or take another 
illustration. On the battlefields the soldiers sometimes 
burst through the line and make great progress. Their 
ambition is to make a quick dash on the open fields and 
defeat the enemy ; but this cannot be done. They must 
delay, one day, two days, a week. They must conserve 



Courage Regained. 127 

the results already gained; thewnust get ready for 
another successful advance. So^is in mental science. 
You cannot live every day at the same pitch of in- 
tensity. You appear to fall back. Really, if you have 
the scientific attitude, you are conserving results for 
another advance. 

Now you are not to suppose that you yourself will 
always be conscious of thisfprocess going on within. 
A seed planted in the subjective mind goes on grow- 
ing of itself. If you have planted there a true seed 
of confidence in the healing power of mind, if the seed 
is confidence specifically that the ailment from which 
you now seem to suffer is being eliminated, then the 
process goes on without the conscious attention of 
your mind. There may even be moments of depression 
in which you think your faith in the matter is gone, 
but if beneath it all there is that steady tendency of 
the thought toward health and happiness, then in that 
case the process is still going on within you. That is 
one reason for having a healer. He knows even when 
you do not that this is the unfailing process. Though 
for the moment your conscious mind is rebellious and 
you feel pain or unhappiness, he does not recognize 
this. He sees you only as you potentially are — well 
and whole. He pla. ts the seed of health in the great 
within of your mind and soul. It will grow there 
unless you are too rebellious so that you entirely up- 
root the seed. You must be awakened to the necessity 
of more trust. You are not to blame for the condition 
you are in but for the cause. You must have more 



128 The Law of Mind in Action. 

faith. Fear and worry and nervous tension are effects, 
not causes. You are to blame not for the effects but 
for the causes. Trust — that is the only way. Say to 
yourself if you must, "I don't know just how that thing 
works ; I do know I have had light enough to show 
that this is my only way out. I will therefore follow 
it. I will therefore believe in the process even though 
I cannot yet see the results, nor feel the working of the 
law." Columbus started on faith to a new world. You 
are starting to a new world. If I am not mistaken, 
you have just about reached the point where the crew 
wants to put you in chains and take you home again 
although you are only a few miles off the shore of 
the new country. Don"t Let These Little Doubt 
Devils Get the Best of You. Insist on Reaching 
the New Land. 

Did you ever watch the light from a light-house on 
a dangerous coast ? It does not shine with a steady 
glare. The light pierces the gloom for a moment and 
then disappears. Experience has shown that this is 
the most successful kind of a light. Faith is that kind 
of a light-house. Understanding is that kind of a light- 
house. It comes in flashes. One flash has come to 
you and then another. Or you may liken the light to 
flashes that have come to you from light-house minds. 
They illumine your way for a moment, then recede to 
enable you to move forward under your own and not 
a borrowed light. Presently you will recognize the 
landmarks and make your way into the harbor. So 
if the way may at times seem dark and fearful, re- 



Courage Regained. 129 

member the principle of the light-house, sight it, and 
sail on. 

You have nothing to fear. Your case is not an 
unusual one. You have not launched out far enough 
into the deep. "Let the shore line go." Sail for the 
harbor of your soul and of health. 

The true soul never accepts defeat. 

Defeated ? Never ! Held back, confined, perhaps ; 
But only as the current of a stream : 
The rushing torrent of my life still gathers 
And swirling, threatens the obstructing beam. 

Discouraged ? I deny the imputation ; 
The silent forces of my life flow on ; 
The deep resistance of the soul grows stronger 
And all my fears of foe and fate are gone. 

Because I know some day the channel opens 
And my determined will has right of way — 
N I wait, but gather force each hour of waiting 
And scorn the coward's whisper of dismay. 

Above the dam the waters lie but deeper, 

The swirling eddies token more of life: 

Who measures strength with fate has stronger 

muscle, 
Emerges more a man from every strife. 

Valiantly strive, nor heed opposing forces: 
No force avails thy genius to control : 
God sends His rain to feed thy flood, which rising 
Sweeps all before the onrush of thy soul. 



130 The Law of Mind in Action. 

Realization. 

Three times a day at regular intervals seek three 
or four minutes of quiet and perfect relaxation and 
repeat to yourself the following : "With God all things 
are possible. I will fear no evil for Thou art with 
me. I' have faith in God. All things work together 
for good to them that love God. I am discovering 
the new country." Say it firmly, confidently. This 
will put you in the right state for the working of the 
deeper law. 



LESSON XXII. 
CREATIVE IMAGINATION. 

THE mind of man is naturally imaginative; the 
normal man sees things in visions, dreams dreams 
— all normal men do. 

It is not confined to the unbalanced brain. Says 
Shakespeare in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" : 

"The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, 
Are of imagination all compact." 

And one reason why more attention has not been 
given to this creative faculty has been this very fact 
that imagination appears in dreams, fantasy, intoxica- 
tion and insanity, as well as in philosophy, poetry, and 
inventive genius. We have turned off Shakespeare's 
significant words with the remark that of course every 
lover is a lunatic imagining that he can write poetry, 
and to say that "the lunatic, the lover and the poet 
are of imagination all compact," is a poetic way of 
saying one and the same thing, that imagination is the 
mental equivalent of lunacy. However, there are too 
many evidences of the power of creative thought in 
imagination for us to disregard it, and we shall find 
that imagination has more than gauzy wings. Gregory, 
the author of a text-book on psychology, says, "In 
creative imagination the leading process is construc- 

131 



132 The Law of Mind in Action. 

tion according to three laws — of the true, the beauti- 
ful and of the good. These are the very highest acts 
of which human genius is capable." Another writer 
states that "if it were not for imagination, improv- 
ements in the arts and sciences and therefore in the 
general conditions of peoples, would be wholly due to 
accident." 

What Is Imagination? 

What then is this great faculty which affects the 
destiny of peoples, forms the basis of a faith, and 
makes the course of true love run rough or smooth? 
It is the act or power of the mind which sweeps all 
the experiences of the past and present, all our 
thoughts and observations into the lap of memory, 
and then, like a child with its blocks, takes them up 
one by one and builds a structure like the model of the 
past, that is, reproduces the past, or fashions them into 
new forms and combinations entirely different from 
the old. In the one case it assists the memory, in the 
other it creates and is the incubation of art, invention, 
science, and discovery. 

The Use of the Imagination. 

That we should exercise the visualizing power of 
the imagination is commended by the great Teacher, 
Who said, "Whatsoever things ye desire when ye 
pray, believe that ye have received them ; and ye shall 
receive them." This is transcendent imagination. It 
requires not only that we see clearly and completely, 



Creative Imagination. 133 

but so clearly and completely that it is as though we 
had already objectively realized it. You are urged to 
form a complete picture of the thing you desire, to 
see it in its wholeness, as a perfect thing, just as it 
will be when received. This is the fundamental psy- 
chology of it ; you cannot receive what you do not 
understand ; you must have an ideal of what you desire. 
And the formulation of this model or ideal is the work 
of the imagination. And it is only when a man knows 
what it is that he wants .that he can hope to attain it. 

It is in this formative power of the imagination, 
which creates an ideal toward whkh a man may strive, 
that we find the basis of modern metaphysical move- 
ments, both_ in the matter of health and prosperity. 
However intelligent its followers may be as to the 
fundamental nature of the process, this is the essential 
secret of the activity and success of the movement. 

For it would be most true in regard to health. First, 
there is the image of a perfect body, the image of the 
perfect organ, which is the creation of the imagination. 
Then each drop of blood that distils from the heart 
bears the imprint of that idea, carries its precious 
freight to the affected organ, paints it with the perfec- 
tion of its own pigment. At the same time nerve and 
neuron carry the imperious mandate of the brain that 
all must be well there. Thought centers upon it and 
all the vital forces acting in obedience to the will tend 
to restore the broken tissue. This helps us to under- 
stand why we must lay stress on the idea of perfection. 
Man, the perfect idea, is ideally a perfect organism. 



134 The Law of Mind in Action. 

This is good psychology, for the finer the model the 
more perfect the production. If we can "image" per- 
fection in spite of the immediate claim of the senses, 
we have the most satisfactory model after which to 
pattern the body and mind and estate. 

The Importance in Thinking. 

It is quite clear from this, I believe, that it is of 
inestimable importance that whatever enters the mind 
should be of highest quality and character, since it 
is to furnish the material out of which the models of 
things are to be made. 

Imagination is destructive as well as constructive. 
It can unmake us as well as make. If we hang upon 
the walls of memory pictures of passion, hate, lust, 
greed, murder, suicide, robbery, demon faces of sin — 
peeping out from very sheet of the modern newspaper 
— with thoughts of failure, poverty, sickness and death, 
we shall at length use these pigments to paint the life 
of our own future. Or if we mix good and evil 
imagery, we shall chisel a character as dreadful as 
the centaur with a man's head and torso and the 
body of a horse, or the fabled monster with the head 
of a human, the body of a lion, and the wings and 
claws of an eagle, or of the grotesque gargoyle on 
the roof of the temple which represents the demon 
shut out from the sacred precincts. 

Our Future in Our Own Control. 
Nothing seems to me clearer than that man has it 
very much in his control as to what shall be his future 



Creative Imagination. 135 

through the proper exercise of his imagination. Nat- 
ure has endowed us with rich powers ; it is a pity that 
we have linked them up with insanity or turned them 
all aside as some form of fanaticism, the unique pos- 
session of some religious faith. And it is a pity that 
we have been rearing our children on this basis. Imagi- 
nation is the chief characteristic of childhood. 

"Trailing clouds of glory 
Do we come from God, Who is our home : 
Heaven lies about us in our infancy." 

The child lives much of the time in a world far 
removed from the evidence of our senses ; his block 
of wood is a speeding engine with flying wheels, the 
trough in which he sails his boat is the boundless blue 
of the sea, and he freights the argosy of his hope with 
treasures from the storehouse of his mind, and shifts 
the sails and flies before the driving winds to the har- 
bor of his heart's desire. His inanimate objects have 
life, they laugh and sing, they weep and walk and 
fight, for all the world like the mythical heroes of 
Greece and Rome. Every child has creative instinct. 

Cultivate Imagination in the Child. 

Nature provides faculties of imagination. The fault 
with us is that we begin to beat it out of the children 
at an early age. Not literally, but figuratively, although 
evidence is not lacking that we use more than moral 
suasion to this end. But imagination merits a better 



136 The Law ; of Mind in Action. 

fate, it should be turned to account In the creation of 
character and a greater destiny. 

There is a power sufficient in childhood to produce 
character and destiny beyond anything that the world 
has ever witnessed, if it could be successfully drawn 
out. Nature provides the mould for the raw material 
in imagination. It only remains to discipline this 
imagination, put it under the control of the will, teach 
the child how to test its products by judgment, not 
only to make it the strongest educational factor in 
our schools, but also the impulsive power to a lofty 
destiny for the individual and the race. 

The Danger. 

I think I have said enough to show that imagination, 
if put into proper operation, will be of supreme worth 
in the creation of health, success, character and destiny. 
It is no strange esoteric power. And it is by using 
this force in strong conjunction with those other ad- 
mirable forces with which man has been endowed by 
Providence that we can create for ourselves an ever- 
widening world. Our destiny is in our own hands ; 
following the law we may rise from height to height^ 
Says Henri Bergson, the prophet of idealism, "In a 
conscious being, to exist is to change, to change is to 
mature, to mature is to go on creating ourselves end- 
lessly." Wisely may we use our powers for an ever 
enlarging existence. 



Creative Imagination. 137 

Realization. 

"He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall 
he do also." 

I know that this refers to my own spiritual nature. 
I do believe on the Indwelling Christ. I do believe in 
the "Christ within me, the hope of glory." I do believe 
on the high nature of spirit in me. I am confident 
that I have the spirit of life, love, and freedom in me. 
I am confident that the Master taught truly Who said, 
"Greater works than these shall ye do," and "All 
power is given unto me in heaven and on earth." There- 
fore I do now believe in the works that shall follow 
my word of faith and today I utter that word in per-^ 
feet serenity of spirit. "Let it be done unto me, ev,en^ 
as I will." It is so done and I am glad and thankful. 
I am led. I am prospered. I am blessed. I am ins- 
piration to all men, because I am faithful to God an<j[ 
His promises. I shall give thanks for the gift of life- 
and faith. So be it, 



LESSON XXIII. 
ONE-POINTEDNESS. 

NO principle of metaphysics is more essential than 
one-pointedness. We must have a real idea or 
image and we must adhere to it. The Bible clearly 
expresses this principle. We read, "One thing have 
I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after." Or, 
"This one thing I do : I press on toward the mark 
of the high calling." Or, again, "He that wavereth is 
like a wave of the sea, driven by the wind and tossed. 
Let not that man think he shall receive anything of 
the Lord." 

We see here that there is a two-fold demand : first, 
that we definitely decide upon the thing we desire ;y 
second, that we refuse to keep changing the desire.^ 
The reason for this is clear to the metaphysician. He 
knows that he will obtain from the Great Creative 
Mind only what he impresses upon that Mind. For 
example, let us suppose a worker in iron to be casting 
the engine for an automobile. To do so, he must 
fashion his sand-mould in the shape desired and then 
run in the molten iron. The shape desired must be 
that of an engine, and nothing else. If the moulder 
is careless of the shape of the mould, the moulten iron 
will take an indefinite shape. 

On the same principle, the demonstrator must real- 

138 



One-Pointedness. 139 

ize that his thought is the mould or pattern which the 
Creative Mind must follow. He must fashion his 
thought definitely; and into the mould the creative 
force will flow on the principle that the flow of sub- 
stance and energy is always in vacuo, which in this case 
is the attitude of definite expectancy. And we receive 
from the Spirit only what we look to receive. The 
Spirit is ready to pour Itself out in fullest measure, 
but can never fill a different room than the one made 
ready for it. Christ illustrates this when He says, 
"Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man 
will open it, I will come in and sup with him and he 
with me." We must open the door. 

The Creative Spirit enters only the door that is open 
and the room that is made ready. So then we must 
have a definite, positive, perfect idea of what we des- 
ire. Having it, we should cling to it and never waver 
either in the image of what we want or in our ex- 
pectancy of receiving it. 

The moment you project a desire or create an image 
and say, "Now let this thing be, let it externalize in 
fact," you have begun the creative process. The Spirit 
then takes up that image and begins to work upon it. 
If we let it alone, and wait faithfully, that is, in faith, 
it will at length materialize. The image or prototype 
has become a reality in the realm of mind or spirit. 
It is the seed involving the plant and the flower which 
by the law of growth will ultimately mature. We may 
speak of that prototype as in the present tense ; as we 
say, "I have perfect digestion." Now, at the moment 



140 The Law of Mind in Action. 

we may be manifesting an imperfect digestion, but we 
are "judging not by appearances but rather right 
judgments." So we say, "I have perfect digestion." 
If we do this with faith we create the perfect mould 
or image or prototype. This the present tense. The 
Spirit begins to work upon our model and ultimately 
brings out the perfected or externalized object of our 
desire. This is the future tense, using relative terms. 
Now we can say, "I have perfect digestion," alluding 
not only to the image in the Creative Mind but also 
to the now realized external fact. This is the process 
of demonstration and this is what Jesus meant when 
he said, "When ye pray, believe ye have received it 
(know that it exists now, potentially) and ye shall 
have it" (since it will ultimately materialize).* 

In the second place, we must beware, lest, between 
the formation of the image and its logical and ultimate 
realization, we change the character of our desire or 
ruin our model by lack of faith. We must therefore 
be consistent in our expectations. We must await the 
result without fear or change, for "he that wavereth 
is like a wave of the sea driven by the wind and 
tossed. Let not that man think he shall receive any- 
thing from the Lord or Spirit." 

Realization. 
I will not recognize any imperfection in life today. 
I know that alone is real to which I gave consciousness ; 



*The student is asked to read Chapter XXIX, Part II, in this connec- 
tion to see how Spirit takes the_ idea and gives it form, when we do 
not know how to visualize or image it for ourselves. Yet even in 
tkis, definiteness of idea is required of us. 



One-Pointedness. 141 

and I will not endow evil and lack with a power they 
do not possess. I will not see evil ; I will not hear 
evil ; I will not speak evil. No one can talk to me of 
wrong and imperfection, for I will not listen. I will 
not be receptive to negative thoughts or suggestions. 
None of these things move me, for I am above them. 
I am above all pettiness and smallness. I am receptive 
only to positive thoughts and acts. Today I am pos- 
itive minded. I am resolute, courageous and full of 
faith in God, in men, and in myself. What I do, I 
do with vigor ; what I say, I say with decision. I am 
strong, forceful, calm, poised ; I rest in the quiet confi- 
dence of one who knows that back of him is unlim- 
ited life, love, and wisdom. "All power is given unto 
me in heaven and on earth." 



LESSON XXIV. 
FAITH, AN ATTITUDE OF MIND. 

WHEN we come to study faith in the light of the 
new truth we find ourselves reaching quite a 
different conclusion regarding it than perhaps we once 
did. We no longer conceive of faith as a desperate 
hold upon a mysterious and uncertain future. We find 
that 'faith in its true sense is an attitude of mind. It 
is confident expectancy. It is a quality of mind de- 
signed for immediate use in the practical affairs of life. 
It is not creed or religion ; it is steady confidence. 
Faith connects the immediate present with the im- 
mediate future. It is certain knowledge that has not 
reached the point of demonstration as yet where it can 
be subjected to the ordinary tests of logic and expe- 
rience, but is just as certain of itself as though it could. 
It is the positive conviction not only that the real is 
derived from the good, and the good from the real, 
but also that the best will happen to me and mine both 
now and in the days to come. 

"And I will trust that He who heeds 
The life that hides in mead and wold, 

Who hangs the alder's crimson beads 
And paints the mosses green and gold 

Will still, as He has done, incline 
His gracious care to me and mine." 

142 



Faith, an Attitude of Mind. 143 

Faith is, therefore, also a conviction of God's present 
and continuous care. It is a winged spirit fluttering 
out a little way into the dark while we follow. As 
we follow, all grows light. Faith is the star that glim- 
mers in what would otherwise be darkness, what just 
beyond the present is darkness to all but the man who 
has faith and knows. 

Yet faith is not some peculiar and indefinable mys- 
tery designed to reveal glorious and dim futures, but 
is an attribute of mind as real as reason. It is a higher 
perceptive power of the mind, a finer sense that en- 
ables us to perceive things possible. Faith is not a 
stationary thing ; we should not speak of the faith, be- 
cause faith always keeps ahead of us. Faith of yester- 
day is experience today and history tomorrow. By 
faith, inventions are made ; by faith, a Panama canal is 
dug ; by faith, science discovers the stars. Most of the 
great discoveries of science have followed the venture 
of faith. Science does not work in the dark ; it works 
in the light of faith. Faith is thus an attribute of the 
mind designed for present practical use. It becomes 
a business asset to the commercial man; we call the 
man who has it far-sighted. It is the guiding star to 
the explorer. It is the power to know before a thing 
comes that it will come or can come. We expect 
faith to be of Practical use in a practical, work-a- 
day world because we know that the Kingdom of 
Heaven is now and that it is our privilege to get the 
Benefits of the Kingdom Now, not merely hope for 
them later. 



144 The Law of Mind in Action. 

The Indwelling Christ — and Faith. 

Does this include faith as belief in God ? Certainly. 
Belief in Christ ? By all means. But not a mystic and 
indefinable feeling or emotion. A belief in God 
Now, active Now, present Now, co-operating Now, 
discerned Now; a belief in Christ as present in every 
soul, beautiful, serene, pure, inspired by love, and 
active now. 

Says Lyman Abbot: "The spirit that was in Christ 
is the Holy Spirit. To seek it, to possess it, to live in 
harmony with it and under its guidance and direction, 
is to be a Christian. This is what Paul means when 
he says he desires above all things to be found in 
Christ, 'not having mine own righteousness, which is 
of the law' — that is, the kind of righteousness which 
comes from obedience to rules and regulations — 'but 
that which is through the faith of Christ, the right- 
eousness which is of God by faith' ; that is, the kind 
of righteousness which flows spontaneously and natu- 
rally from an inward life of fellowship with God. Please 
to do right, then do as you please — that is Christian 
living." 

Have faith if you will in 

"That last, far-off, divine event 
Toward which the whole creation moves," 

but have faith greater, more wonderful — a belief in 
Emmanuel, that is, God with Us Now, loving us, lift- 
ing us, lighting our way. To have such a faith is to live 



Faith, an Attitude of Mind. 145 

in constant touch with God. It is not only to believe 
in the power of God, but also to believe He is using 
that power Now in our behalf. Thus we see that 
faith is the faculty of the mind that sees the further 
possibilities in us and in the world, that encourages 
us to explore and develop the new fields of conscious- 
ness. Every time we yield to the urge of faith, we find 
ourselves entering new fields of experience, discovering 
new possibilities of enjoyment and service in religion, 
morals, business, social life, national life. Life is an 
illimitable sea. Faith is the telescope which we hold 
in our hand as our vessel ploughs her way along. By 
it we can see ahead in the course, the dangers to be 
avoided, the storms that threaten, the harbors and the 
islands that invite. 

Man's Divine Nature Assures Him of the 
Illimitable Capacities of Faith. 

You are not vile dust which by magic of God can be 
spiritualized and drawn up to Him in some distant, 
uncertain place ; you are a spirit, soul, in possibility as 
pure as God ; and faith is the power that awakens your 
divine nature, shows you your spiritual endowments, 
urges you to test and explore the infinite realm of your 
inner consciousness and bring out into practical life 
and action the things you find there. Faith is the power 
that enables you to sell all that you have — fear, dis- 
trust, worry, shame, ignorance, and to purchase the 
pearl of great price — the consciousness of the limitless 
power of your own soul; for within you are all the 



146 The Law of Mind in Action. 

potentialities and possibilities of the Kingdom of 
Heaven. 

God is in You, the personal God, at all times; but 
some do not recognize Him, or claim His guidance and 
help. Such people do not have the vision of the spir- 
itually enlightened; they do not have the unlimited 
vision; they have the foresight of reason, but not the 
heightened perspective of faith. Faith connects the 
soul that does not recognize God, with the God within 
and without, and reveals and releases the power that 
operates through Him. 

Faith Gets Results only if Persisted in. 

Persistence in faith is essential to success. There is 
thus nothing that cannot be accomplished through faith. 
We may secure anything we wish in intellect, in prop- 
erty, in health, in spirituality, through it. But the great 
difficulty comes in the fact that few people hold to their 
faith long enough to accomplish anything. They are 
always in a state of fluctuation. Today having faith 
in one thing, tomorrow in another; today having faith 
in faith, and tomorrow having faith in nothing. James 
says of such a one: "He that wavereth is like a wave 
of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed, let not 
that man think he shall receive anything of the Lord." 
Such people walk by faith for a while, then they see 
something they very much desire to do which does not 
fit well with their faith, so they leave the path of faith 
for a time ; they do the inconsistent thing, such as to 
say the cutting word, perform the unkind act, get the 



Faith, an Attitude of Mind, 147 

best of another in a bargain, tell a falsehood to gain 
a desired point. 

After this they return to the path of faith, but it 
is not so satisfactory and they have lost ground, be- 
cause if we wish to get anywhere we must Keep at 
It. When we leave the path of faith, we have difficulty 
in finding it again. Let him who would test the truth 
of the Bible, "All Things work together for good to 
them that love God", put his whole faith in faith and 
believe positively that All Things are his. If he per- 
sists unceasingly, verily he shall have his reward. 

The world calls today for men of faith. The King- 
dom of Heaven opens only to this key, and many men 
and women are kept from their highest usefulness 
because they are afraid or ashamed to use the key and 
enter the kingdom. They fear loss of friends, respect 
of friends, or that they will lose the sweetness of old 
associations. They do not realize that if they enter 
the Kingdom of Heaven they will find more than com- 
pensation for anything they may lose. And there can 
be no real loss to the man of faith. 

Fear Keeps Out Faith. 

Fear keeps many beautiful souls hanging in inde- 
cision between the old interpretation of faith and the 
new. The old faith said, "God's ways are past find- 
ing" ; the new accepts the promise that "with God all 
things are possible" and goes forth to make claim 
upon it. In Jesus' parable the laborers got their pay 
every day. So we are to begin at once to enjoy the 



148 The Law of Mind in Action. 

pleasures and treasures of the Kingdom. If we are 
not enjoying them something is wrong somewhere. 
We have either misapplied our faith or else been spas- 
modic in our application of it. No faculty has been 
given to man that is not meant to be applied Now. 
Faith is so meant.' We ought to have abundance of 
the things we need — nor think poverty in estate, mind, 
or friendship a sign of spirituality. We shall find it 
a sign of spirituality to Have All Things. 

Sometimes, even to those who have true and persis- 
tent faith, there will come times when everything 
looks dark. Apparently faith has failed us. But if 
we persist in faith we shall soon find the darkness 
brushed aside and a brighter light than we have ever 
known before will shine forth to guide our pathway. 
There can be no real darkness or failure to the man 
or woman of faith. Apparent failure will for such a 
man or woman turn out to be a door to better things ; 
the seeming defeat of the good today will be the rec- 
ognized victory tomorrow. Only have faith in faith, 
and your faith will save you, and you shall "Go in 
peace." Faith will turn any course, light any path, 
save any situation, relieve any distress, bring joy out 
of sorrow, peace out of strife, friendship out of enmity, 
Heaven out of hell. Faith can do anything. Faith is 
God at work. 

Realization. 

I now rest in the care-free peace of faith. I do not 
fear, because infinite love and faith abide in me, I 



Faith, an Attitude of Mind. 149 

rest, rest, rest! How sweet the word to me. I rest! 
I rest physically; I rest mentally; I rest in my spirit 
in the deep calm of eternal peace, for I am one with the 
Father. "There remaineth therefore a rest for the 
people of God." I feel an infinite expansion in con- 
sciousness : I am slipping out into the infinite life where 
I may contact God and good at every pojrit. I am not 
less myself, but more my true self, for I am one with 
the Infinite Life and Wisdom. I shall return from 
my quiet hour to life's work and problems with the 
infinite light of wisdom to guide me and of faith to 
inspire me. I give thanks, 



LESSON XXV. 
MENTAL POISE. 

DURING the influenza epidemic a friend of mine 
suddenly found herself caught in the tornado 
of chaotic thinking- and the symptoms made their 
appearance. She told us about it the next day. 

"Yesterday my head and back ached, my throat was 
sore and I could not keep my feet warm," and seeing 
our expression of concern she added, "Otherwise I 
was all right." 

"What was all right?" I asked, laughing. 

"My mind," she answered calmly. 

One who knew the truth less and lived more to the 
law of fear might have felt alarmed, but not she. She 
recognized that she had left an opening in her mind 
for the entrance of the disease-thought and she calmly 
went to work to cast it out again, and to realize the 
presence of all-perfect life. "Thou wilt keep him in 
perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee," says 
the Psalmist. 

One should never be frightened in the presence of 
negative thoughts and conditions. Simply recognize 
that they have only as much power as your thought 
gives to them, as darkness exists only so long as the 
light remains away from it. Your positive thought is 
the light and fear and disease are the darkness. You 

150 



Mental Poise. 151 

have only to bring in a good thought and the darkness 
will disappear. 

"Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make 
you free," said the Divine Revealer. "What is truth ?" 
asks the world in the words of Pilate. And the reply 
of the Christ is that "for this cause came I into the 
world," that men might know the truth. "I am the 
truth." Yet it is not the personal Christ alone Who is 
to be known, but the Mind of Christ. "Have this 
mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus, our 
Lord," said Paul. That is to say, we" must come to 
that knowledge of self and God and the universe which 
Christ had. We must have His mind and understand- 
ing before we can come to His character and "be there- 
fore perfect, even as our Father in heaven is perfect." 

To acquire this "mind", we must learn to discern 
all things spiritually, we must perceive the real behind 
the seeming, and we must deny all that is contrary to 
a perfect spiritual creation. We must know that man 
innately is perfect ; the true self is divine, for so only 
would it be possible to attain the outer perfection 
which Jesus demands. Knowing this truth, we shall 
be made free from all the ills of human thought and 
experience. 

This is a deep truth but not a mystery. The en- 
lightened soul knows this to be an elementary truth of 
metaphysics. The awakening soul must constantly 
and consciously seek and. demand of himself the true 
and the real. When pain or adversity or melancholy 
or fear appear to manifest themselves, he must say, 



152 The Law of Mind in Action. 

"This is not mine. I will not accept it. I will know 
only the good and the true." 

Sometimes this will appear very hard, but if we con- 
stantly repress wrong thinking and encourage good, 
which is the result of right thinking, we shall gradu- 
ally grow into the sure knowledge of that truth which 
is to make us free. 

We all have asked, "What is truth ?" and some of us 
have found the answer by growing into that attitude 
of mind and heart which sees and accepts only the 
good and the true which exists for us all. We all must 
"Grow in the truth." Happy is that man or woman 
who with hopeful heart persists in "spite of weakness, 
lameness, blindness" of the human spirit to grow into 
the divine mind, for then he "shall know the Truth, 
and the truth shall Make Him Free." 

Realization. 
When you feel yourself caught in the grasp of the 
negative thought, calmly seek the "place of repose." 
This is in the quiet contemplation of spirit and spirit- 
ual reality. I am spirit. I am'life. I am in the Divine 
Mind. Nothing exists but God.. No evil can fall 
upon spirit and the spiritual mind. My mind is right. 
My heart rests in the peace of this confidence. "Thou 
wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed 
on Thee." 

Why do you sing today ? Still hides his face, the sun, 
And all is sad the same as when your grief begun. 
You do not know the joy that sings in me today, 



Mental Poise, 153 

Because it all is gone; I've cast it all away. 

What is it you cast off ; can grief and pain be cast, 

Can all your loss and woe be buried in the past ? 

But still confess you see, the strain and stress is gone, 

Some weight has rolled away; mine eyes not woe- 
begone. 

The pain has left my head; that strain here in my side 

Has vanished in the sea, as shores cleansed by the tide. 

The tide ? What tide ? I see, some change come over 
you, 

An atmosphere, a calm, a radiance, 'tis true. 

Whence does it spring? Ah, friend reveal this thing 
to me, 

That I may find your joy, that I your secret see. 

It came at dawn, this peace ; there lighted in my soul 

A wondrous light, that cleansed my mind and made me 
whole. 

It "cleansed your mind?" "You mock my deep desire 
to know. 

"Your mind was cleansed," my friend? 

Dost change the body so? 

'Tis so indeed, 'tis so! Trust took the place of fear; 

Love took the place of loss; and joy, of sorrow drear. 

Pain vanished with the thought of ever-present love, 

I caught a view of God — within — not up above. 

In me! In me; within! His kingdom is within! 

Where God is, pain is not, where love is, gone is sin. 

I breathe a newer life; I live in Spirit now; 

And not to fear or pain, but just to Truth I bow. 



154 The Law of Mind in Action. 

My heart was changed at once, my mind changed with 
my heart; 

Love showed the way to Truth; Truth played its heal- 
ing part. 



LESSON XXVI. 
THE WILL TO WIN AND PROSPERITY. 

ff / "T\HEY can because they think they can," says 
A Virgil of the winners in the boat race. The 
will to win is the first need of the day. Resolve to go 
out today with the victor's mind. "Well begun is half 
done," is a true saying. You hold the day in the 
hollow of your hand this morning. Wisely have great 
men exalted the human will, for one must ' greatly 
desire a thing before he can hope to have it. Nor is it 
really worth having unless we want it enough to make 
some resolutions about it. I will win today. 

The will acts in several ways. First it is that 
quality in us that enables us to choose. Each has a will 
of his own ; we can select what we will do and what we 
will be. To be able to choose is what constitutes in- 
dividuality. The soil cannot choose what seed shall be 
planted in it. The earth cannot choose whether it shall 
spin about the sun. But we can choose what words we 
shall say, what thoughts we shall think, what work we 
shall do, or leave undone. Nor do we move in a fixed 
orbit. We can choose what course we shall pursue, 
what friends we shall cultivate, what causes we shall 
support. It is a glorious morning exercise to select 
wisely the path we shall follow today. 

Having chosen, we also have the power to execute. 

155 



156 The Law of Mind in Action. 

The will does not create but it is that attitude of mind 
that holds us to our desire until it is created for us. 
Plans may go wrong, the belt may slip on the pulley, — 
but the will swings things again into line. Friends 
may falter; the will wins them back. Individual 
plans may fail, but not the Great Plan, the Great Pur- 
pose for which we strive. No matter how many times 
some weakness shows, the will binds up the broken 
parts and pushes on to the end. The will holds on to 
life after the physician gives up. It "carries on" after 
hope has departed. It goes "over the top" and wrests 
victory from defeat. We can because we think we can. 
The will also is a magnetic force. It enables an 
Alexander or a Caesar to make world empire; a 
Washington or a Lincoln to make men free. Your will 
exercises a subtle charm ; your eager purpose sets men 
to working for you. Fortune smiles upon the man who 
dares. It favors the brave. Would you win men's 
respect? Then show them a great purpose. Would 
you compel circumstances to do your bidding? Then 
resolve this hour to be master today of self and cir- 
cumstances. 

"You will be what you will to be; 
Let failure find her false content 

In that poor word environment; 
But spirit scorns it and is free : 

It masters time ; it conquers space ; 
It cows that boastful trickster, chance, 

And bids the tyrant circumstance 
Uncrown and fill a servant's place." 



The Will to Win and Prosperity. 157 

Realization. 

I am receptive to the highest wisdom today so that 
I choose only that which is best for me and others. I 
now choose this course (mention it), ' I will go on to 
its fulfilment. I do not fear men or conditions today. 
Circumstances have no power over me. I make cir- 
cumstances. I am master of my fate. I am free to will 
and to do. I feel the God-power acting in me. I 
breathe the finer forces. My firm will is a magnet. It 
draws to me my good. It attracts and holds friends 
for me. I have a courageous soul, I am open to the 
highest truth, and I show only the greatest wisdom in 
my affairs. I play my part today with all the power 
of a mind conscious of its infinite strength and filled 
with the divine love and wisdom. I have the will to 
win. I can because God can. 



LESSON XXVII. 

CREATING ATMOSPHERES, AND 
PROSPERITY. 

WE make our own heaven and our own hell 
through the conscious or unconscious use of the 
Law. We do it by the thoughts we think and the 
attitude we assume. For the Great Law receives our 
mental impression and brings out into form the ideas 
of our mind. We are not, therefore, the creatures of 
some chance environment or circumstances. There is 
something in us that attracts us to them and them to 
us. If it were not so we would move out of them. Do 
not complain about the world you live in. It is a 
reflection of your own thought. Do not blame others. 
Seek the cause in your own thinking. Ask, "What 
is it that brought me here? What was my thought of 
failure that produced this?" Then decide on the en- 
vironment and circumstance you desire and mentally 
see yourself in your new surroundings. Then you are 
on the road to attainment, and your changes will begin 
to take place naturally from within. Your good does 
not come from without. The sooner you learn that 
you cannot expect someone else to hand it to you the 
better off you will be. You cannot change the un- 
pleasant to the pleasant by a mere change of place. 
We are all surrounded by the atmosphere that most 

158 



Creating Atmospheres, and Prosperity. 159 

corresponds to our mental mood. So soon as we 
change our mood, we shall find ourselves in better con- 
ditions. Every person and every place is surrounded 
by an impalpable atmosphere which people feel even 
when they don't know what it is that affects them. 
Before the writer had learned these great truths, he 
spent a night with a physician in whose house many 
operations were performed for appendicitis. The 
atmosphere was so strong of this fear that he caught 
the contagion of thought, and later was operated on to 
have the thought cut out. Unless our mind, is very 
positive, we become susceptible to the atmospheres 
about us. We must be careful not to attract ourselves 
to negative mental atmospheres, and should we find 
ourselves at any time open to negative influence, we 
must assume at once a positive attitude and declare 
ourselves surperior to it. Disease often comes by some 
impression from without which we harbor; after a 
while the thought develops like the seed and grows 
from within. It can never become a disease for us 
until we accept it, either consciously or by tacit agree- 
ment to the race suggestion, and allow it to grow from 
within. 

Many places have strongly suggestive atmospheres. 
Some business places radiate good will and success. 
Others are full of a feeling of failure and general 
despair. Enter some atmospheres and you are seized 
with the desire to laugh and dance and sing. Go into 
others and you feel like weeping. Contact people 
who are constantly thinking along the lines of music 



160 The Law of Mind in Action. 

and you will experience a new interest in it. Contact 
literary men and women and you will feel a desire to 
create. One woman bought a new house, and soon 
found herself desiring to write, although she had 
never shown any interest before in that direction. 
Later she discovered that an author had lived there 
and used one of the rooms as her study. 

At one time we had a metaphysical sanitorium. We 
bought a large house and advertised for patients. At 
first few came, although we were widely known. One 
day a patient of ours who lived in the city and came 
for daily treatment was late for her appointment. On 
asking her the reason why, we found she had been sit- 
ting for an hour in the park, feeling that something 
kept her from approaching the house. We began to 
make inquiries and found the house had been previ- 
ously used as a private hospital, and many patients had 
been sick or died there. We accordingly went through 
all the rooms of the house and treated them all for the 
atmosphere of peace and faith, mentally filling them 
with patients. In a short time all the rooms in the 
house were filled and our business was thereafter al- 
ways a success. 

People are very sensitive to atmospheres and can 
tell very well what others think of them though no 
words pass between them. Jesus was like that and 
was able to tell Simon the general trend of his thought. 
He said in effect, "Simon you are condemning and 
criticising me for my kindly attitude toward this 
woman." 



Creating Atmospheres, and Prosperity. 161 

And then He showed him that He was quite in- 
different & his opinion. Jesus, in turn, radiated an 
atmosphere so full of good will and healing power 
that people were healed by contact with His atmosphere 
or as some call it, His aura. This occurred in the case 
of the woman who touched Him in the crowd. "Virtue 
flowed out of Him." That is, vir or life energy, radi- 
ated from Him. 

The chief charm of personality lies in the power of 
the individual to radiate a certain magnetic influence 
just as the sun radiates light and heat. The great 
leaders of history seem almost to have been Charged 
with electricity, so powerful was the magnetic circle 
with which they were surrounded. Dr. Newell 
Dwight Hillis calls attention to this in a remarkable 
essay on "The Contagion of Character." He says : 
"Froude exhibits Julius Caesar drawing men unto him 
as a magnet draws particles of iron and steel. The 
rude Roman soldiers could no more escape the 
magnetic presence of their general than they could 
dodge the gravity of the earth. That most interesting 
writer, Hammerton, was deeply impressed by the state- 
ment that Napoleon's hand-grip was like a powerful 
electric shock." American history affords us striking 
illustrations in such men as George Washington, John 
Paul Jones, Philip Sheridan famous for the brilliant 
episode at Cedar Creek, Abraham Lincoln, both as 
citizen and as president. In every walk of life we 
encounter men unusually charged with a dynamic 
power which strangely affects us. 



162 The Law of Mind in Action. 

Spiritual Radiations. 

Such an atmosphere may be either of physical, 
mental or spiritual origin, or may combine the elements 
of all. It has always been most remarkable in the most 
spiritual men. The atmosphere of such men is vibrant 
with healing energy that is often very astonishing. 
Next to Jesus, the disciples most evidenced this healing 
power, being most rarely spiritual or else most com- 
pletely turning their energies in this direction. 
Bernard of Clairveaux is a type of the medieval 
saint who performed some really wonderful and un- 
doubtedly authentic cures in this same manner. His 
spiritual aroma was exceedingly powerful and wrought 
many cures. 

The Atmosphere of Places. 

The presence of such characters often endows 
places or localities with a subtle atmosphere most con- 
ducive to health. Around these places the health- 
thought lingers. Faith here has its most perfect 
works. One naturally thinks at once of the town of 
Lourdes in France. In a grotto here, the Virgin Mary 
is accredited with having appeared to a peasant maid 
in 1858. Later on a church was erected over the grotto 
and unnumbered thousands have come to drink of the 
waters, to pray and be healed of their diseases and 
weaknesses. A great collection of canes and crutches 
evidence mutely to the fact of some of the cures. 

Some of the most interesting experiments ever made 
by scientists were those of the photography of thought 



Creating Atmospheres, and Prosperity. 163 

atmospheres by the Frenchman, Dr. Baraduc. He 
secured a photograph of the atmosphere of this very 
place, showing the presence of white lights or thought 
centers rising above those who came in faith for heal- 
ing and filling the room. 

In Quebec the Church of St. Anne de Beaupre has 
been the scene of similar healings through faith and 
prayer. While doubtless many cures recorded have 
been only temporary or apparent, due to causes easily 
explained, yet the fact remains that the atmosphere or 
thought-aroma of the place is highly charged with 
healing power, and thousands are healed therein. 

It becomes very evident therefore that thoughts are 
things and that our world is the world of our own 
choosing and making. Since we have the power to 
create the atmosphere by which we are surrounded we 
should "guard our hearts with diligence, for out of it 
are the issues of life." 

We should recognize, too, tru.t we tend to draw to 
us and to draw ourselves to the circumstances and 
people most like ourselves and our thought. If, there- 
fore, you do not like your present circumstances, 
change your way of thinking. Give conscious thought 
to this subject and begin to create a new heaven and 
a new earth for yourself. 

Realization. 

I make my own heaven today. This day is what I 
make it and my world is what I make it. Today I 
am blessed because I bless: I am prospered because I 



164 The Law of Mind in Action. 

believe in my prosperity. I have friends because I am 
one. I have love because I love. (If your business is 
not prosperous go into your store and bless it.) This 
place is my place. It is the reflection of my thought. 
No other has any power over this place to give it an 
idea of failure. There cannot be any lingering thought 
of failure here. This place is full of the atmosphere of 
success and good-will. Everybody who comes here is 
optimistic and prosperous. I attract business and suc- 
cess. I inspire people with confidence. I radiate the 
subtle atmosphere of success. People who come in 
here feel it. I have a constant attitude of faith toward 
my business. I do not think about failure, but only of 
success. I shall forget what happened yesterday and 
before, if it was not success. I establish a new 
standard for this place. (Realize that it will do no 
great good for you to say it and not mean it. And 
it will do no great good for you to mean it only for 
the time you are saying it. Hold this mental attitude 
all day. Hold it every day until the atmosphere is 
created and you are a success in visible expression. 
Put out your best efforts and act in such a way that 
people will feel that everything is all right. Bankers 
have been known to stop a run on the bank when 
things were bad from a material standpoint, just by 
holding a lofty mental attitude and giving confidence 
to their patrons. I have known people to succeed in 
the eleventh hour. Be one of them.) 

Go on then, blessing your place all day. If it is the 



Creating Atmospheres, and Prosperity. 165 

home and there is inharmony there, treat it in the same 
way, and say: — 

This house is the house of my spirit and the home 
of my heart. It cannot have inharmony for I am 
harmony and love and I draw only love here. Every- 
one in this house is thoughtful, kind and considerate. 
I have faith in everybody here and my faith is justi- 
fied. I am now conscious of a new mental attitude and 
no one coming into this home can fail to notice it. All 
is harmony and everything is delightful. 

One should think this truth each day until results 
are secured. And never fail to give thanks that your 
faith has found its place in the Cosmic Creative Mind 
and that it is being .done unto you as you think. 



LESSON XXVIII. 
THE PERSONAL SPIRIT. 

THE enlarging views of God have disturbed many 
because they have feared to lose the personality 
of the Divine Presence. They have thought that they 
must make a choice between God without law and 
law without God, and have chosen the former. As a 
matter of fact no such choice is necessary or possible. 
God must be accepted with law since there can be no 
separation; And in making this statement we are not 
differing from the intelligent thought of the leaders 
of the orthodox church, for advanced theologians, like 
the late William Clarke or Washington Gladden, have 
been for many years teaching the church to enlarge its 
concept of God away from the limitations of human 
personality. We ought no longer to think of Spirit 
in terms of form but rather of feeling. Our own real 
nature is the inner quality of our life with its infinite 
capacity, and we ought to learn to think of God as the 
infinite extension of the best in us without the limita- 
tions of individuality. Thus we shall recognize Him 
as the All of Life, Love, and Wisdom, and not as a 
person in the ordinary sense. By personality is meant 
of necessity a mind apart from some other. One can 
be a person only by being distinct from some other. 
This is impossible with God since He is All and "the 

166 



The Personal Spirit. 167 

Lord thy God is one God." To conceive of God as a 
person is to recognize two powers in the universe ; God 
or Good, and some other who is Not God and not good, 
and is therefore evil. Then an inevitable conflict of 
wills must result in which two infinite powers strive 
with each other for mastery ; chaos would be the result 
and the cosmos would be reduced to zero. Good and 
evil would be of equal power and reality and it would 
be useless to strive against nature in the hope of over- 
coming evil. Since God is infinite it is impossible for 
Him to be limited by an opposing power ; since He is 
Truth and Truth is that which is, the only conceivable 
opposite to God is that which is not. "Beside Me there 
is none other." 

We must therefore think of God in other terms than 
that of the ordinary concept of personality. The 
ancients found this in the law itself, saying, "Verily 
the Law is a Person," for they found that the Law 
reflected their faith with infinite exactness. If one 
looks to the Law with thoughts of faith and love, he 
finds a response in it to his mood. If he looks with 
hate and skepticism into his universe, it appears tragic 
to him. This is why Jesus spoke of it as the Father 
giving bread to His children because they ask bread ; 
and again as the adversary, casting the debtor into 
prison until he pays the utmost farthing. To those 
whose faith turns heavenward expecting good, it 
comes ; to those who think in terms of limitation and 
fear and want the law becomes the adversary. It is 



168 The Law of Mind in Action. 

therefore like a person, said the Jewish rabbis, for it 
reflects our moods with utmost exactness. 

Accordingly if one looks at his universe with faith, 
it will justify his confidence; if he gives his heart in 
adoring love to the Divine Mind, It gives back measure 
for measure of Its own divine nature. Thus with the 
poet we may say, 

"Speak to Him thou, for He heareth, 
And spirit with Spirit can meet, 

Closer is He than breathing, 
Nearer than hands or feet." 

Thus the Infinite acts through Its law with all the 
intelligence of Its nature reflecting to us with absolute 
accuracy whatever mood or feeling we display toward 
It. According to the nature of our faith it is done 
unto us. This removes the element of chance from the 
response God makes to our prayers. For God is thus 
bound to act through law and not through individual 
choices of will. To believe that God acts through in- 
dividual choices of will is to give Him personality ; and 
He may answer our prayer or may not, giving or with- 
holding arbitrarily. If God acts by choice of will 
rather than by law, it is useless to pray for we have 
no way to be sure of anything He will do. 

But He acts by law ; and we may, therefore, perceive 
that the issue lies with us as to what we shall receive. 
If we obey the law it will be our servant and do what 
we ask it. "Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall 



The Personal Spirit. 169 

find." God acts through law to give "according to 
your faith." 

Nor does this rob God of freedom to act nor the 
attributes of personality. We may be sure there are no 
attributes in the Son which are not inherited from the 
Father. 

Man is self-conscious and self-directing; so is God. 
He is not, like man, conscious of Himself as individual 
or apart from another, but He is conscious of Being — 
He is conscious of feeling and thinking. He is con- 
scious of joy and love and creative power. He experi- 
ences states of consciousness which constitutes being. 

Again, He is self -directing. He has the power of 
selecting as to how, when, and where He will act. He 
starts a universe when He will, and places it where He 
will. Planets are born at different times, some being 
so old that the light has gone out from their sun ; 
others being so new that their flickering youthful light 
has hardly had time to reach us through the immense 
diffusion of space. But having chosen, Creative Mind 
ever acts by law and science itself is merely the sys- 
tematic investigation of God's orderly way of working. 
All discoveries of the highest intellect confirm the 
law of God's activity. And this is as true of the 
"natural law in the spiritual world" as elsewhere. 
"All's love, yet all's law," says Browning. 

Yet "He that made the ear, shall He not hear?" 
"He that made the eye, shall He not see?" Infinite in 
power, perfect in wisdom, tender in love, God becomes 
to those who seek Him in simple childlike faith, the 



170 The Law of Mind in Action. 

Father "Who f orgiveth all thine iniquities, Who healeth 
all thy diseases, Who crowneth thee with loving kind- 
ness and tender mercies, Who satisfieth thy mouth with 
good things so that thy youth is renewed like the 
eagle's." 

Realization. 

To realize the presence of the Personal Spirit is to 
find channels of power for the Word in all our affairs. 
We must learn to perceive God as the Father, forever 
standing at the doorway of His house to welcome the 
returning prodigal. 

To realize the presence, it is essential to employ 
heart and mind and will. We must use the mind and 
will to swing back the door on its rusty hinges. This 
can be done in this way — a way I have found very 
helpful. We begin by talking to ourselves something 
like this : 

I am now entering into the secret Presence; I am 
coming into touch with All-That-Is. The world is 
shut out. I am shut in, in the temple of my own soul. 
Life and love and peace and God are all about me. In 
Him I live and move and have my being. Every 
breath I breathe is the breath of the spirit. I am 
drinking of the water of life freely. The pure clear 
stream of love divine is flowing through my body like 
a current, carrying away all impure and selfish 
thoughts, all weakness, all evil, all meanness, all sin. 
It cleanses me thoroughly in body and in mind and 
washes away all my sin. There is left now nothing 



The Personal Spirit. 171 

but purity and love. The river of God fills me. From 
within me flow springs of living water. The life of 
God is in me. The love of God fills me. The peace 
of God holds me. Fear and worry and all that is un- 
like God, has gone away from me. I am filled with the 
love of God. God is here. Then we may continue 
by repeating the Twenty-third or Sixty-first Psalm, or 
some poem that suggests the Divine Presence. 



LESSON XXIX. 
INTUITION AND IDEATION. 

THE fine responsiveness of the law, which we have 
observed in the chapter on the Personal Spirit, 
appeals to the highest instincts in us. It fills us at 
once with gratitude and confidence. We realize that 
"no good thing will He withhold from them that walk 
uprightly," and that if we will place ourselves under 
the guidance of the Spirit, "He will teach us all 
things and guide us in the way of truth." For we 
need to realize this, that God is more than His law, 
though He work through law ; and that if He has 
intelligence enough to bring to pass those things for 
which we pray, He also has the capacity to "teach us 
how to pray." In other words, we find God acting 
through the law as our invisible guide, as we noted in 
the fourth part of the law in Lesson II. 

If the law is infinitely responsive, it must be as 
quick to answer us in response to a call for wisdom 
and guidance as to give us those things for which we 
ask. The way this is accomplished is for us to assume 
toward the law the attitude of receptivity for the wis- 
dom we need. We must recognize that Divine 
Wisdom knows just what course it is best for us to 
pursue under given circumstances ; and we may there- 
fore turn to it with perfect confidence, while sitting 

172 



Intuition and Ideation. 173 

quietly in the silence and making conscious unity with 
the Spirit of All Wisdom. Recognize that in essential 
nature "the Father and I are one." There is no 
separtion in this one wisdom ; therefore the knowledge 
of truth is in you now. "As the Father hath inherent 
life in Himself, so hath He given it to the son to 
have life in himself" ; this life is the divine intelligence 
in you, universal and knowing all the particulars of 
the case in point. But this divine wisdom is the un- 
differentiated of all knowledge and what you desire 
is that it shall differentiate its wisdom through you to 
the particular application in hand. You may there- 
fore say, "Infinite wisdom now leads me and directs 
me as to the course which I should follow." Then you 
may remain for a while in the silence and come forth 
with expectancy to the tasks before you. You will go 
to work making your decisions on the basis of your 
good judgment, knowing that you cannot go wrong; 
and that if you should be on the point of false judg- 
ments something will rise in you as an instinct to tell 
you that this course is wrong. That is the voice of 
the intuitions upon which you have called. Heed it 
and go on without fear along the path that will be 
pointed out to you. 

It is here that a true spirituality will count. And by 
spirituality we mean a consciousness of ultimate 
reality and the presence of Spirit, a deep feeling of the 
union of your own mind with the Divine. These are 
qualities which are developed by practice. The student 
of psychology and physiology knows that there are 



174 The Law of Mind in Action. 

brain-centers and nerve-systems especially adapted to 
the influx of pure ideas from the universal and their 
method of reaching the objective mind by which we 
cognize and act upon them. This is carefully ex- 
plained in Chapter 14 of the Edinburgh Lectures by 
Judge Troward and the student may profitably read 
that chapter. The point which I wish to make plain 
is that if we are to depend upon the intuitions we 
must follow the law of intuitions and place ourselves 
in the utmost harmony with Spirit. As Spirit is, above 
all, Feeling, we shall find that our intuitions will be 
largely a matter of feeling ; and yet after a time we can 
act upon them with certainty for the impressions will 
be deep enough to form a sure guide for us. At the 
same time we must be sure that intuitions and mere 
impressions are not confounded in our thought. Many 
people are constantly getting impressions which are 
merely the vagrant thoughts of other minds, race 
concepts, or fears and similar thoughts rising out of 
the subconscious where they have been embedded. 
Large numbers of people get these impressions as 
psychic experiences and they should be carefully 
guarded against, for they often bring inharmony and 
worse. A good criterion to follow is as to whether 
the impression is directly along the line for which we 
have been seeking guidance. If not, it is probably not 
an intuition. Again, we should seek to note the first 
impression as most dependable. We often meet people 
who on first approach do not appeal to us. Later we 
get over this feeling, but there comes a time when our 



Intuition and Ideation. 175 

first impression is proven to have been correct. The 
reason for this is that the subjective self is far more 
impressionable than the objective and is in touch with 
a wider field of knowledge. 

Many have found it a valuable practice upon retir- 
ing to bed at night to state that they will receive direc- 
tion from Infinite Wisdom along a given line. Then, on 
waking, they note their first thoughts about the matter 
in hand and find that if they follow the intuitions 
thus given that they do not go wrong. I have always 
found this to be true in my own experience, that if I 
seek direction on retiring and then subsequently act 
on my judgment at the time the business in hand re- 
quires, that my affairs have always gone well. In this 
connection one might well read the story of Jesus' in- 
tuitions and those of Brother Lawrence, the medieval 
saint. 

Ideation. 

The intuitions can also be followed in another im- 
portant respect, and that is in relation to the forma- 
tion of the idea or concept which we wish to have 
embodied through the activity of the Law. We have 
already learned that the law works on the model, idea, 
or image which we reflect into it. Now it often hap- 
pens that our ideas may be limited and our understand- 
ing of the thing necessary or expedient for us to do or 
have at a given time may be too insecure for us to 
mould it into mental form. In such case, we must 
recognize that if we do not know the best thing to 



176 The Law of Mind in Action. 

have, there is a spirit in us that does know, and we may 
therefore depend on it. In this connection I urge the 
student to study my book "Being and Becoming" 
which fully explains this principle. It is sufficient here 
to say that if our motives are high and pure and our 
faith steadfast, it is not necessary for us to have a 
perfect image so far as the objective mind is con- 
cerned. There is a mind in us that does know just 
what is best and this mind can hold up to the Law 
the idea of what we want ; then the intuitions and the 
Creative Mind alike work upon our problem to bring 
forth what will be best for us. This is not a mere 
saying, "Thy will be done whether it is mine or not."' 
It is not mere quiescence and letting things go. It is 
quite other than that ; it is expecting something to 
happen along a definite line for you in the best way. 
You may not know the form the desired good will 
take, but you do have now a definite idea. 

You realize that Spirit itself is Idea and that what 
you want is the embodied idea; and often, when you 
make a demonstration, you find that Spirit, which 
"knows what things ye have need of before ye them," 
has embodied the idea in the answer to your realization 
although it takes a different form from what you had 
anticipated. 

Nor need we fear to trust our desired good to the 
Law. Infinite Intelligence will work upon it to bring 
it forth in the finest form. Spirit itself is formative; 
it is the power that conceived a universe, dreamed a 
rose, and thought man into form. It had no pattern 



Intuition and Ideation. 177 

for the moulding of its ideas into form. But it knew 
how to embody them ; and, as it is eternally creative, 
it will body forth your idea whether it be an invention 
no one else has ever conceived, a melody never before 
sung, or a motif in art never before breathed into the 
beauty of color. 

Here genius has its incubus, all invention its birth, 
all art its inspiration, all wisdom its source. Dare to 
launch out on life's uncharted sea, for in you the Great 
Pilot, the Great Adventurer, the Great Poet, the Great 
Inventor, the Great Musician, the Great Artist is 
making Its great quest for individual experience. 
Genius springs from the soul that dares to drink at 
the fountains of inspiration in the garden of God. 
Thus Spirit helps us to conceive and bring into birth 
the highest we can desire. It gives to us "above all we 
ask or think." 

Realization. 

I now have faith in the inner power of spirit work- 
ing through me. I trust in the inner wisdom. This 
wisdom is not mine, neither is it intelligence apart 
from me: it is God in me. I trust in the divine 
illumination of my own soul in which I am one with the 
Father. If I do not yet know objectively, there is 
that in me that does know. (Now bring your feeling 
of this truth up to the highest point and then say: I 
desire and will receive guidance along this line. I 
shall be told, what course it is best for me to follow. 
Then rest in quiet expectation that something will 



178 The Law of Mind in Action, 

occur which will enable you to make a choice of the 
right thing. Then go about your daily work with per- 
fect faith that at the right time Spirit will show you 
what to do and guide you into the best things. If you 
have proceeded in the right way, you will find that you 
will now know in your heart that this is the thing you 
should do or have. Having been instructed as to the 
best course to follow or the best thing to have, go to 
work to realize it in the same way as for any other 
"realization.") 

(When it comes to the "demonstration" of health, 
the healer will realize that it is not necessary that we 
shall know how the internal organ should appear, nor 
what shape it will have. There is in us That that 
does know, and if we hold mentally to perfection in 
thought, each organ of the body will answer with a 
correspondence in form. 

In manifesting prosperity, the same rule will hold. 
Therefore declare your faith in the perfect intelligence 
of the Law, put forth the idea in thought and then 
let the Supreme Intelligence in you find the best way 
to accomplish it for you. The mind in you that 
formulates and the mind that executes are One; and 
so the thought must become the thing, or, your word 
be made flesh.) 

I am conscious of the creative activity of the Divine 
Intelligence acting for me along this line and I give 
thanks that it is done unto me even as I will. 



LESSON XXX. 

ULTIMATE REALITY AND THE FATHER- 
HOOD OF GOD. 

LAW is everywhere yet law is not all. Since law 
is a way of working, there must be That which 
works that way. The student is to be warned against 
too great emphasis upon the Law, lest he make the 
Law of Cause and Effect his God rather than That 
which is neither cause nor effect. And again we must 
be careful lest in simplifying our teaching to a few 
fixed principles, we conceive these principles to be 
the all or ultimate. Since Law is the activity of a 
principle, we must realize that there must be a prin- 
ciple to act. There is no act without the actor; no 
song without the singer; no art without the artist. 
God is the Great Actor, the Lofty Musician, the 
Supreme Artist. As each form of art depends on the 
spirit of the artist, so each form or law of creation 
must depend on the Spirit or Creator. We learn from 
this that when we use the law we are not manipulating 
God. 

We must, therefore, learn to think back of the 
visible to the invisible, back of the limited to the 
absolute. In a book of this kind we can only point the 
way. The study of the Absolute is essential and is 
the work of the advanced student. It is only by 

179 



180 The Law of Mind in Action. 

deduction, axiomatic and abstract reasoning that we 
can at all penetrate the mystery of the Absolute, save 
by feeling. I hope some day to issue a book on this 
subject. Meanwhile I wish to point out a general 
direction our thought should take. To know the Law 
and to feel that, therefore, we know all is very danger- 
ous. It may lead to wrong mental practice and 
ultimate failure. We must therefore constantly strive 
to realize the Spirit that underlies the Law, to identify 
ourselves with it, to perceive the living presence of 
the Absolute, to discover not merely impersonality in 
the law but to find in it the activity of Person. Thus 
we must learn to think deeply for we have on the one 
hand the danger of materialism in the use of an im- 
personal law, and on the other the danger of estab- 
lishing an impossible personality as our thought of 
God. 

Will the student therefore realize that what we have 
already learned is not Truth per se but is about Truth ? 
Will you not therefore constantly apply yourself to 
the realization of the Absolute ? Back of the law there 
still stands the Indivisible; the Inscrutable; the 
Changeless ; the Eternal ; the Unalterably Perfect ; the 
Complete; the Universal; Truth unreasoned; First 
Principle ; the All ; the Incomparable ; the Undifferen- 
tiate of life, love and wisdom ; in short the Exhaustless 
Storehouse of All-That-Is, Spirit, Power-to-Become ; 
the Absolute. 

These are the names of God conceived by the intel- 
lect ; but back of them is the Nameless Name, the Un- 



Ultimate Reality and the Fatherhood of God. 181 

spoken Word. Just as no one has ever seen a star 
but only the vibration of light that has been streaming 
from it perhaps for thousands of years, so no man has 
perceived God directly but only through mental con- 
cepts. Reason which is not absolute must posit God or 
that which is absolute. Says the Apostle John, "No 
man hath seen God at any time ; the only begotten Son, 
Who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared 
Him." Reason can never comprehend God, but it can 
declare Him. Reason proves Him to be all, since we can 
discover no quality such as life, love, wisdom, supply, 
beauty which does not come from a source inex- 
haustible; and no matter how far back we go in the 
series, still we find a cause until reason moves from 
cause to Causeless Cause, or All ; yet however much 
God may be grasped by the understanding, still He 
remains the Eternal Mystery. Only by faith can He 
be apprehended. As we are all begotten of the only 
God, which is the correct translation of monogenes, 
(not the "only begotten") we "declare God." But 
how? 

In Man, the Absolute. 

There is in man himself the undiscovered country 
of the absolute. In man is that which is indivisible, 
inscrutable, changless, eternal, perfect, complete and 
power-to-manifest. There is in man that out of which 
all things proceed. No limitation has ever been dis- 
covered to the power of life, love, and wisdom in man. 
However much he displays these Godlike powers, he 



182 The Law of Mind in Action. 

still retains the capacity for more of the same thing. 
No boundaries can be set to his capacity. Reason has 
its limitations, but the capacity of being has no limita- 
tions. 

Since, then, in God is the limitless, and in man is 
the limitless, and since in both the potential power is 
of the same nature, then both are one. This is the 
divine unity. 

Or we may come to the same conclusion in another 
way: God is Truth and Truth is all. Besides Truth 
there is nothing. If we are to be at all, we must be at 
one with this Truth or All. Again since Truth is a 
unity — for it is all — then there is that about us which 
is universal. Thus man contacts the absolute in all 
respects and by knowing himself can know God. Yet 
no man fully knows his own nature, and what we think 
and feel is not our self. Above all thinking, feeling, 
and sensation is that eternal element, the self. Above 
poverty, want, fear, pain, unhappiness, is that which 
is all, divine, unchanging, eternal, absolute. But we 
can only know this higher self by what it does. There- 
fore we may say both of the self and God, that they 
are the Great Mystery of Being. 

Who Is God? 

Who then is God? We can think of God in other 
terms than the intelligence, ever engaged in answering 
the prayers of the sick, poor, and unhappy ; constantly 
busying itself with filling the orders for our "demon- 
strations." God dwells in a light unapproachable. 



Ultimate Reality and the Fatherhood of God. 183 

His Law does His work. Wrapped in the robes of 
His own being, the eternal God is eternal realization of 
being. Constantly experiencing states of conscious- 
ness (which is being), God forever delights in 
harmonies and glories of the Creative Mind. He 
glories alike in the being and the making. Having 
the power to hear and the infinite thought of harmony, 
God thrills to the ecstasies of the eternal music of the 
universe, visible and invisible. Soft melodies delight 
Him, grand strains of song celestial gladden Him with 
their sweet melodies. Orchestras supernal forever 
peal forth their thrilling notes engaging and satisfy- 
ing with their perfect rhythm. 

But even as God dreams these harmonies celestial, 
the Great Law of His being bodies them forth into the 
music of the spheres, the rippling song of the brook, 
and the note of the nightingale. 

And while music delights the Soul-of-All, His heart 
is throbbing with the divine ecstasy of love. He is 
feeling the impulses of affection. Thrill on thrill in 
richest feeling passes through His gladdened heart. 
And the Great Law bodies it forth into beauties of 
sunrise and sunset, of starry vaults of heaven, of 
human hearts all-glorified in lovers; betrothals, 
mothers, babes, mating-things from atoms up to man. 

Thoughts of the Infinite go forth to create with 
all the joy of thinking things new. As one in luxuriant 
ease lies upon a bed of boughs upon some mountain 
height and, in the sense of well-being, love, life, and 
supply, gazes in uplifted wonder upon the earth and 



184 The Law of Mind in Action. 

sea and sky and breathes a sigh of hushed and sweet 
contentment, so God lives within His universe and joys 
in His being and making. 

Thus God is All and observes all. No splendid sun 
drives bravely through the pathway of the sky, sing- 
ing as it runs, but God sees and hears. He is in the 
flashing of the comet and the flicker of the star. 

Thus the birth and growth of every wild thing, 
the wee budding of the woodland violet, the grub 
that churns the earth, the bird that springs into the 
sky, are all in the mind of God, and God is in them all. 

If then, not a sparrow can fall to the ground but 
your heavenly Father seeth it, if He feeds the ravens, 
shall man who shares His life, go unseen and unsatis- 
fied? Rather should we perceive ourselves as the 
center of God's choice activity. Rather should we 
see that when we allow Him to so appear to us, He is 
the Good Shepherd leading us in green pastures and 
beside the still waters where He restores our souls. 
Rather should we see in God, the Father Who goes 
forth to meet the returning Prodigal and puts on his 
finger the ring of His affection. And in glorified 
realization we should enter into the secret place of the 
Most High where we may abide under the shadow of 
the Almighty. We should learn to listen to the music 
of the world and hear in Nature the voice of God. In 
the deeper silences of our soul we, too, should thrill to 
celestial harmonies ; we too, should feel deeply the 
throbbing joy of well-being and love unaffected. Song 
of the soul, sing in my heart; joy of the world, thrill 



Ultimate Reality and the Fatherhood of God. 185 

through my being. Now do I bow down and worship, 
I kneel before the. Lord and say, "My Father Who art 
in heaven, hallowed be Thy name ; Thy kingdom come, 
Thy will be done in me." 

Realization. 

There is but one realization for the Absolute. "Be 
still and know that I am God." 



LESSON XXXI. 
THE SUPREME AFFIRMATION. 

THE first principle of the law is that it produces 
for us just what we think. It becomes to us just 
what we become to it. If we assume an attitude of 
love and harmony toward the universe, it becomes 
Mother Nature to us. If we look upon it as hard and 
cruel, it becomes to us inexorable fate. The law brings 
into form what we think. While this seems a 
hard saying when we think of all the ills that come to 
us, yet the thoughtful mind would not have it other- 
wise ; for if our wrong thoughts and attitudes of mind 
bring distress, then our right thoughts will bring us 
joy and supply. This is the dependableness of the 
law. The law never changes ; we alone change. The 
law is invariable ; we alone are variable. The law 
is like the current of electricity ; it is always the same 
power, but we may apply to it the variable factor of 
the instrument we use, and draw from it either light, 
or heat, or power. 

Now the affirmation, when rightly used and under- 
stood, is simply the statement of the attitude you as- 
sume toward the law. It is to say to yourself, "I am 
receptive to this particular thing from Divine Mind. I 
am at one with It on this point." God is more ready 
to give than we are to receive, but He cannot give 

186 



The Supreme Affirmation, 187 

until we assume the attitude of receptivity. "Ask and 
ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find." The great 
seekers are the great finders. This is faith which 
launches out on the unknown sea and finds the undis- 
covered country. The supreme affirmation is therefore 
the supreme attitude of mind toward the law. It is 
the highest statement. It is faith, for faith is a con- 
fident attitude of expectancy of the thing you are 
seeking. 

The question then arises as to what is the highest 
attitude of mind. And the answer is that there is no 
attitude of mind so high as the conscious recognition 
of the spiritual reality of being. To be conscious of 
one's self as spirit ; to be conscious of the universe as 
thought in form (Lesson VIII) and to be conscious of 
thought as the ruling power over all things, this is 
supreme. That is why all statements of being begin 
with God as all ; man as His child, sharing His* nature 
and resources; and the necessary conclusion that all 
power is therefore given unto man in heaven and on 
earth. 

The supreme attitude, we say, is the consciousness 
of being. It is the consciousness of that which is. 
Jesus said, "God is spirit and they which worship Him 
must worship Him in spirit and in truth." That God 
is spirit is not something to be proven by the intellect 
and reason; it is rather something that we intuitively 
feel to be true. The supreme attitude is therefore not 
some intellectual proof of being, but is rather a feeling 
of reality, It is to know in one's heart that what we 



188 The Law of Mind in Action. 

desire is ours so soon as we are ready to appropriate 
it. It is to realize that we do not have to make things ; 
we only have to "let them be." What we desire exists 
in the Divine Mind the moment we desire it. In spirit 
it already is a reality and by the process of materializa- 
tion it will soon pass into form and come into our 
hands. Thus our "word is made flesh and dwells 
among us." Thus we "know the truth and the Truth 
of itself makes us free." We do not have to make 
our good, but we must put it up to the Creative Mind 
and Law to make it for us. 

Now since the law assumes toward us the attitude 
we assume toward it, we perceive that the stronger 
our conviction of our own life-essence or being is 
felt by us, the stronger will that thought be impressed 
on Creative Mind. Then since Creative Mind becomes 
to us just what we become to It, we find It pouring 
back into us increasing measures of its own life and 
being. As soon as we reflect into it the thought of life, 
It becomes increasing power-to-live to us. If we re- 
flect into it the thought of love, it becomes increasing 
lovingness to us. The heart that is closest to God 
always feels the greater power of His love. The 
closer we get to Him the closer He becomes to us. 
New beauties dawn on our vision. New songs sing 
forth from heaven. New joys await us. Higher 
emotions become possible. The spiritual mind sees 
visions celestial where the gross mind sees nothing; 
hears voices in nature where the materialist hears 



The Supreme Affirmation. 189 

sounds. As we draw nearer to Spirit, Spirit draws 
nearer to us. 

"And behind the dim unknown 

Standeth God within the shadows 
Keeping watch above His own." 

The supreme affirmation, therefore, is a statement 
of being — "I am." When Moses asks, "Whom shall 
I tell the children of Israel that you are?" the Voice 
says, "I Am That I Am." I am the Absolute-of- 
All-That-Is. I am pure being. I am the Nameless 
Name. I am the Proofless Proof. I am that which is. 

The supreme affirmation is the realisation of the 
self as identified with Pure Being or God. I am at one 
with the All. I am. I am being. I am spirit. I am 
life. I am substance. 

I am that which was in the beginning, is now, and 
ever shall be. I am not that which was made. I exist 
from eternity to eternity. I am the life more abundant. 
I am a center of the activity of Divine Mind. I am a 
point of consciousness in the All-Mind. I am one 
with the Infinite. I and the Father are one. 

Assuming this attitude toward the Divine Mind is 
to cause it to assume toward you a more intimate 
attitude. You become a still more intensified center 
of consciousness because you draw around you still 
greater resources of Mind. ) Just as the botanist's 
study and thought upon a flower reveals its greater 
beauty and symmetry, so that he knows more about 



t ' 



190 The Law of Mind in Action. 

the flower than another person, and accumulates still 
more knowledge about flowers by attracting informa- 
tion, so we accumulate greater resources of wisdom, 
life, and love, and supply by assuming a more in- 
timate attitude toward them and their source. 

Not only life and love are thus realized in height- 
ened measure, but also supply. For in the realm of 
spirit or Divine Mind from which all things spring, 
the things we want are spiritual substance or thought ; 
and when the thought comes forth into form, it still 
exists within the form. The thought is, in fact, an 
individual, though not self-conscious, entity. We may 
call it the soul of the thing. The soul is the intelli- 
gence which exists within the form and sustains it. 
The length of the life of the form or thing depends 
on the power with which the thought in it has been 
endowed. It is by the recognition that there is a 
thought-entity, soul, or intelligence within Nature and 
all her manifestations and in all "things" that we can 
control our world and environment; for the superior 
and conscious intelligence in us can dominate the lower 
world of intelligence unconscious of itself. 

| We can therefore attract the thing we want by real- 
izing that the substance of which it is composed and 
the intelligence by which it is sustained is one and the 
same with the real essence of our own nature. We 
identify our life with the life or thought that sustains 
the thing ; so that the supreme affirmation is the asser- 
tion that we, and thought, and thing are one, 
accompanied with the deep feeling of the truth of 



The Supreme Affirmation. 191 

our statement. It is to say and feel. "I am supply. 
I am riches. My thought is my wealth and my riches 
when I identify it with the thought of Spirit." 

This is the reason, therefore, that we frequently 
say, "I am." 

"One sits behind the awful change 

And calmly says, 'I am.' 
Above the sky, though storm clouds fly, 

Though Justice bleed, and peoples die 
While nations follow the great lie, 

I am and still I am. 

The sun shall rise ; the grass shall grow, 
The clouds across the sky shall go, 

The ancient rivers still shall flow, 
I am and still I am."* 

Realization. 

Infinite Life, I live and breath in Thee. I am Thine. 
I am Thy life made manifest. I am Thy center of self- 
realization. I am Thy love come forth to form. I am 
Thy great adventure into individuality. I, too, am 
love. I, too, am life. I, too, am peace. I, too, am the 
nameless substance. I, too, am spirit. I am life 
abundant. I am that which is. I am undying sub- 
stance. I cannot die, for I am life. I cannot be sick, 
for I am health. I cannot be unhappy, for I am joy. 

*Edwin Davies Schoonmaker in Nautilis, January, 1918. 



192 The Law of Mind in Action. 

I turn from all that is negative that I may realize the 
great affirmative. I am. I am. I am. Why should I 
fear? I am. No danger can come to me. I am. I 
am spirit and I am life. I cannot be lost for I am in 
the Divine Mind. I cannot stray, for Thou art every- 
where. I am. Let me rest in the calm and peace 
today, and when problems vex and things get out of 
place let me enter into the secret place of the Most 
High, let me bide a while under the shadow of the 
Almighty. I am ; and still I am. In the secret place 
of my heart all is peace and all is quiet. There are no 
storms here. I am ; and still I am. 



Part II 

TREATMENTS OR REALIZATIONS. 

Forms for Development of Consciousness. 

LESSON I. 

THE USE OF FORMULAS. 

THE student has now arrived at a point where he 
realizes that no one can give him a magic healing 
phrase or be his consciousness for him. He must 
himself know the truth if he is to be free. At the 
same time he has learned that it is legitimate for him 
to use every means possible for the development of 
consciousness. The object is to bring the mind to 
the point where we know that our word not only cam, 
produce results but that it will and does now. The 
more the metaphysician feels this, the more certain 
are his results. This feeling or consciousness may be 
arrived at in a variety of ways. One may read 
books, like the Bible, to inspire his faith. Or he may 
meditate on truth and God. Or he may pray worship- 
fully, or listen to inspiring music, or study the flower 
in the crannied wall. 

193 



194 The Law of Mind in Action. 

"Flower in the crannied wall, 
I pluck you out of the crannies, 

Hold you in my hand, little flower; 
If I could understand what you are, 

Root and, all, and all in all, 

I should know what God and man is." 

Or he may read how someone else was healed of dis- 
ease. Finally, he may take a form of treatment like 
the following and, holding it in thought, may rise to 
the point of consciousness where he knows that the 
truth is about to set him free ; thus he makes the 
words of the treatment his word to the law and it is 
done unto him even as he wills. 

Let us realize, therefore, that the following are 
merely forms ; let us not use them as mere formalism, 
but as steps into consciousness. They are not 
"treatments" after all ; they are realizations or per- 
ceptions of truth and reality. Most of them are writ- 
ten in the form of self-help, but they can be used in 
the perception of truth for others. In the Divine Mind 
in which we live, move, and have our being, the ego 
and the alter ego have no essential line of separation. 
What is true in your mind therefore must be true for 
your patient. As God is All, there is no such thing 
as dividing lines in spirit. Do not recognize such. So 
far as your patient is concerned, when he. has agreed 
to receive your help, he has signified that he is willing 
that your consciousness should be his. He has made 
his mind impersonal to you that you may impress 



The Use of Formulas. 195 

upon it just that character which you both wish it 
to assume. He is open and receptive to your word. 
The word therefore is in his mind the moment it is 
in yours, for it is spoken in spirit where time and 
space do not exist. Since space does not exist, there 
can be no divisibility in mind, and the moment the truth 
is realized in yourself it is realized in him. 

This fact is so deserving of the utmost clearness 
that we may well dwell upon it. It is the recognition 
of the unity of truth. Truth must of necessity be all, 
since what is not truth is nothing, and all plus nothing 
equals all. This means therefore that truth cannot 
be divided because if we divide it into parts there 
must be something to separate it into the assumed 
parts— something must come between which is not 
truth to cause the separation. But the presence of the 
opposite of truth, or nothing, cannot cause any real 
division. Truth is therefore an essential unity. 

We have already studied this all-important subject 
in the lesson on Mind. We there discovered the es- 
sential unity of Spirit, Mind, or Truth, and learned 
that it is a unit. All the power of the unit is concen- 
trated at any given point at any time by our contacting 
it. Just as the electric bulb may draw on all the 
electric current and still not exhaust it, so we may 
draw on all there is in God by contacting Him at any 
point. For since there is no real point or place in 
Spirit, It is fully present wherever we recognize It. 
If the student has fully grasped this he will realize 
that when he sits in the silence to "treat" a patient 



196 The Law of Mind in Action. 

he is simply realizing the whole truth for the patient. 
Then, as truth is everywhere with all power, what- 
ever is true in the healer's mind must of necessity be 
true in the patient's mind. Then, if the healer's realiza- 
tion is perfect, he has drawn on all the power there is 
for the patient. So the Great Teacher rightly claimed, 
"All power is given unto me in heaven and on earth." 
If God is all, and I live in God, and make my con- 
scious unity with Him, then all the power there is must 
wait upon my word. 

In giving a treatment therefore it is very essential 
to make a conscious unity with your patient before you 
speak the word. You must realize that you both are 
spirit living in the One Mind, and that whatever is 
true for you in that Mind must of necessity be true 
of him. In actual practice you will find that after a 
while you do not have to think of this consciously as 
you already have the consciousness of this truth. The 
experienced healer seldom argues with himself or the 
patient, because he already knows ; but he has had 
to pass through the very stage you are now passing 
through in the development of his consciousness, so 
do not be ashamed to work out your thought mechan- 
ically if necessary. But all the time try to feel the 
truth as deeply as you can while you think or use the 
following treatments. 

In regard to speaking mentally to the patient, you 
are at liberty to follow any method that will give you 
the highest consciousness. If it seems to bring him 
closer to you, you may mentally see him when he is 



The Use of Formulas. 197 

at a distance : if you wish you may say, "You are so 
and so." But the use of the second person, or "you," 
may lead you to feel a sense of separation, so be sure 
you do not feel such to be the case. In the end you 
will reach a point where all that is necessary will 
be to take the name of the patient, whether pres- 
ent or absent, and then enter the silence of the All- 
Mind and declare that all is perfect wholeness, truth, 
life, love and supply. You will then speak the word, 
"Let it be done unto you, even as you will." That is 
all, and if you can realize this at once, the patient will 
be healed as soon as he receives. He may at once be 
receptive or it may take time for the word to manifest. 
That is not your concern. You have spoken your word 
and realized the truth. You have nothing to do with 
what follows. If the patient fails to respond, because 
of some subtle doubt or unwillingness, to receive your 
word, it is not your fault. Leave that to the Law. 

The following realization (Lesson II) is suggested 
by my brother, Ernest S. Holmes, as a good method 
for the beginner, 



LESSON II. 

THE HEALING POWER OR HOW TO HELP 
OTHERS. 

* 4 THIRST center your thought in the spirit ; that is, 
■*■ realize that in the spirit is all harmony and all 
peace. Realize this until you feel it all through you. 
Get a picture in your mind of perfect peace, hold it 
for some time, be grateful for it, repeat some helpful 
passages from the Bible. This puts you in touch with 
power. Now your mind is at peace and resting on the 
spirit for all, turn your mental attention to your patient, 
see in him the same thing that you have seen in your 
self. Picture him as being perfect Now. Know 
that Now the power of the spirit which is in him is 
his perfect health and life. See this for him until you 
perfectly realize it in him. Now you may call him 
by name and tell him that he is made in the image and 
likeness of God, and that the spirit of truth is working 
in him and is completely restoring him to perfect 
health. Realize this for him for some time before you 
go on any further. Now continue and tell him that his 
life is spiritual and not subject to any condition but 
the spirit. Feel this with all the power that you have. 
See it with all the sight that you have. Do not get 
anxious or make hard work of it. Be perfectly calm, 
positive and natural in everything you do and say. 

198 



The Healing Power or How to Help Others. 199 

Remember that it is the spirit of truth that you em- 
body, which is to do the work. This is the Only 
way that you can hope for good results. Now remind 
him that, as a child of God, he is being cared for by 
the Spirit of God ; he is therefore full of faith in that 
power and he is receiving that power into his thought 
and into his life. See this and feel it for him, calmly, 
positively, and with absolute assurance. Now tell him 
that he is perfect and whole in his spiritual nature and 
that he will manifest it in his physical nature. Now 
give the power of the spirit the whole place for a few 
minutes, realizing that it is doing the work. Repeat 
the Lord's prayer slowly and with deep feeling. If 
you like, repeat several good thoughts from the 
Bible. Now give all into the keeping of the All 
Father, and rest in peace, for the work is done, 
as far as you are concerned. Hold this feeling of 
faith and wholeness for some time, and finish by say- 
ing: 'It Is Done through the power of the spirit 
and in the name of Christ.' " 



LESSON III. 
WHOM TO TREAT. 

IN his first enthusiasm the eager finder of truth feels 
that he would like to heal the stripes of all the 
world. He has compassion on the multitude because 
they are as sheep without a shepherd. This is natural 
and right ; for loving and compassionate interest in our 
fellowmen is an indispensible law of healing. But it 
must not lead to wrong practices. You do not have 
the right to treat everybody. To treat those who 
might regard your efforts as an inexcusable inter- 
ference, is wrong. Just because it might do them 
good is not a sufficient reason. Unless the case is 
very exceptional, such treatments are a mental in- 
vasion of their volitional rights. It is mental sug- 
gestion, hypnotism, and malpractice. In all cases 
where the patient is mentally incompetent you have a 
perfect right to heal. This would include insanity, 
hallucination, cases of accident where the patient is 
unable to choose. In all cases where other people are 
in danger you have a right to give your help, and you 
will find that subjectively the patient is reaching out 
for help and therefore is receptive. In case someone 
near to you, as a member of the family, is violating 
the laws of life, you must study out for yourself how 
far you have a right to speak them into truth, If their 

200 



Whom to Treat. 201 

acts bring distress to you, you may treat yourself that 
you are in harmonious surroundings and that all those 
who come near to you are self-controlled, considerate, 
and loving. This will cure most cases. If they speak 
harshly or act unkindly, you can declare the opposite. 
Say, "I see you loving, kind, and considerate," or make 
such other statement as appeals to you. 

There will always be cases where you would like to 
help but at present cannot. You can declare that the 
way is opening up for you to speak the truth to them. 
You can by the silent word open up the pathway to 
their minds, but after it is open you must let the truth 
make its own appeal. You must not force its accept- 
ance. To attempt it is to violate another's individual- 
ity. Inquisitions have been established, thousands have 
been burned at the stake, murders unnumbered have 
been committed, battles have been fought,' nations have 
been drenched in blood, peoples have been exterminated 
and civilizations have been extinguished by the well- 
meant effort of religious zealots who sought to force 
other people to accept their truth. Let us not per- 
petuate the system. Let us have no established, sys- 
tematized, dogmatized, orthodoxy of the truth. Let 
us emancipate the souls of men as well as their bodies. 
Had God desired conformity to the truth rather than 
individuality, He would have made man without the 
power of choice. He would have said, "This is the 
way ; walk in it because you cannot help yourself." 
He would have forced us to love, to serve, to be right. 
But love would then have been mechanical, and virtue 



202 The Law pf Mind in Action. 

a necessity. God knew better. He desired the spontan- 
eous and voluntary giving of our hearts, or nothing. 
He wished men to live the truth because they love the 
truth. 

Moreover the history of all forced religion, where 
the constraint has come from the outside rather than 
from within, has been that it leads to formalism, hypoc- 
risy, decay, and death. 

So let us not try to force the truth on anyone. Let 
us give it to them, and when it has been presented in 
its own fair garment and bodied forth in our lives, 
men will want it for its own sake. Nor need we fear 
to wait. The world is hungry for the truth as the 
thirsty sands for the advancing tide. 

Meanwhile if your heart longs to help, lift up your 
eyes unto the fields, they are white already to the 
harvest. Thousands on thousands are ready for your 
word. If they will not take it in one city go to another ; 
if not in one home go to another. You do not need 
to waste your time with those who do not want it when 
so many are calling for help. All people are your 
brother and sister and mother. Go ye into all the 
world and preach the truth to all. Turn to the people 
nearest you, however, whenever you can. Although a 
prophet is rarely honored in his own country, yet there 
is where he should begin. Start where you are, help 
where you are, if possible. If you are faithful in a 
few things, you will be made a ruler over many. 

If you desire to make the giving of this truth and 
healing to the world your life work, begin with those 



Whom to Treat. 203 

about you. Gradually you will find others coming of 
their own accord to you for help and you will wake 
some morning to find yourself a successful healer and 
teacher, a blessing to your day and generation. 



LESSON IV. 
HOW LONG TO TREAT AND HOW OFTEN. 

IT is a mistake to suppose that the value of a treat- 
ment lies in the length of time you hold the thought. 
As a matter of fact you are working in a timeless 
element. In mind, whatever is known must be known 
immediately or not at all. All you have to do is to 
"register" there. Your ability to do so quickly will 
depend upon your consciousness. The use of affirma- 
tions, denials, treatments, realizations, reading, argu- 
ments, and so on is not for the sake of the patient but 
for your own sake. You must follow such a course as 
will bring your faith up to the point where you know 
in your heart that the word you speak will heaL It 
is the experience of all healers that our consciousness 
is higher at some times than at others. In exalted 
moments we speak the word and the patient is at once 
healed, if receptive. At other times it may require 
closely applied thought and argument to bring our 
faith up to the required intensity to register in the 
Creative Mind. 

As to how often we should take the patient into 
the silence, that is also a question of conditions. If 
he is not readily receptive we must continue to make 
our advance on chaos and the dark. We must treat 
until an opening is secured, for while we treat none 

204 



How Long to Treat and How Often. 205 

but those who desire help, yet race prejudices, relig- 
ious formalism, and such thing's may prevent the 
patient from easily receiving. He may be like the New 
Testament character who exclaims, "Lord, I believe, 
help Thou mine unbelief." The object of repeated treat- 
ment is therefore to be sure that we have made a full 
realization in consciousness. 

Again the thought of some people is easily changed ; 
they vacillate and accept contrary suggestions. I have 
had patients who could not hold to an idea more 
than a day or two at a time. In such cases I have 
found it necessary to give them daily instruction and 
treatment until the seed of faith had time to root. 
Do not be discouraged at seeming failure; you do not 
know when it may turn to brilliant victory. So long 
as the patient is depending on you, go on daily affirm- 
ing the truth of being and leave the rest to God. 



LESSON V. 
WHAT KIND OF CASES TO BE TREATED. 

HOW inadequate are words! We do not treat 
anything, we neither manipulate the disease, the 
body, the mind of our patient, our own, nor Creative 
Mind. We simply realize the truth of being- and that 
does the work for us. "Ye shall know the truth and 
the truth shall make you free." There is no disease 
in spirit. So-called organic disease has no more real- 
ity than functional ; functional has no more reality 
than we give it. Disease is in the thought and is 
cured by the change of thinking. Some disease 
thoughts appear to be more firmly rooted in the mind 
of the patient than others, but remember that all the 
power there is is to be applied to every case and you 
will find one class of disease as curable as another. 
We have known of too many cases of so-called incur- 
ables whose ailment melted into nothing, to be mis- 
taken in our conclusion that "with God all things are 
possible." He who claims otherwise is unacquainted 
with the principle with which we work. God is the 
healer, truth is His weapon, and that weapon it is given 
us to use. Do not hesitate to treat any case to which 
your consciousness can rise. 

At the same time, when you take a case be sure that 
you feel within yourself a sufficient elevation of con- 

206 



What Kind of Cases to Be Treated. 207 

sciousness. If, after meditation, you find you do not 
have the necessary confidence do not hesitate to sur- 
render the case to another healer. It is more than 
mental dishonesty to accept as a patient one whom 
you do not feel able to heal. For example, suppose 
the case to be total blindness, or deafness, or a broken 
limb; do you think you will be able to heal it? If so, 
go on. It has been done, it can be done. But if you 
know that your consciousness will not rise to this point, 
then turn away the case. Be honest with yourself 
and others. Avoid the danger of fakerism. Do not 
bring this great movement into disrepute by joining 
the army of mere tax-gatherers. You Are in This 
Work for but One Great Purpose — to Heal. Your 
Business Is Not "Treating Patients" but Healing 
Them. 

At the same time do not underrate your conscious- 
ness. If you feel that with God all things are possible 
and that you have faith enough to see this patient well 
or prosperous, then go on, for you cannot fail. God 
will add to you "the universal plus." "Give, and it 
shall be given unto you ; good measure, pressed down 
and running over shall be given into your bosom." 

Whatever you can conceive of yourself as having 
or doing, you can do. Have no fear; all error will 
yield to truth. 

Special Realizations. 
On Loss by Death. 
"I am the God of Abraham ; for God is not the God 



208 The Law of Mind in Action. 

of the dead but of the living; for all are alive unto 
God." 

The healer will present the following thought either 
audibly or silently to the patient: 

The first necessity to comfort is to realize that 
"death" is only the name to an event in life. No one 
really dies. Life cannot be lost. God does not see 
death at all because He knows only life. (See page 109) . 

We may liken life, or the spirit of man, to a dove as 
it is spoken of in the Bible. When the cage in which 
it is confined is broken up, the dove is set free. It 
soars away into the sky and out of sight and we say, 
"I have lost the dove." But we know that somewhere 
it is alive, somewhere it is free and happy. It has not 
lost itself and it flies in the sunlight of the same sun 
that shines on us. The dove is for a time lost to us, but 
it is not lost to itself. As God sees only life and all 
"are alive unto Him," there was no change in the life 
of the dove when it flew away from the box. So the 
dove or "spirit" is not lost to itself or to God. It is 
lost only to our conscious mind. We are the only ones 
who feel the change as loss. 

Moreover the spirit has not lost us. Its first instinct 
as it leaves the body is doubtless to come to those 
dearest to it and bless them. As it is immaterial, and 
mind is immaterial, it can communicate its love to our 
mind. But thought and love are silent and not violent 
forces. Therefore the soul must be still to receive 
the still small voice of love. If the waters of our life 



What Kind of Cases to Be Treated. 209 

are troubled, spirit cannot make an impression on it 
with its gentle breeze of thought. 

To agonize and trouble and "sorrow as those who 
have no hope" is to cut ourselves off from the comfort- 
ing presence of God and from the love of the dear one 
flowing back to us. 

It is not that we should desire to be told the mys- 
teries of the beyond, "for if one return from the dead 
we will not believe him," but rather that we should feel 
the comfort of the spirit's "All's well," as it directs 
its loving thought to us. It may even cause it distress 
for it finds us so chaotic in thought and feeling that 
it can get no response from our deep inner mind — the 
mind in us that even now can rejoice in the mysteries 
of the soul. 

Sleep and rest are therefore earnestly to be sought, 
and a peaceful mind; and it is wrong to lose one's 
poise. Weep? Yes, if you wish, shed tears over the 
parting that takes place physically. Stoicism is not a 
vast virtue but your tears are not the violence of 
fear or regret. Nor would you hold back the onward- 
pressing soul. It has gone on to other forms of un- 
foldment and experience. Bless it, and let it pass. 
Some day for you the silver chord shall break and you 
too shall pass into the newer and higher land. Mean- 
while God keeps His watch-care over you both — the 
dear one there, you here, just as the same sun shines on 
your friend in the east while you are in the west, or 
north, or south. 



210 The Law of Mind in Action. 

(Compose the mind of your patient, and then take 
the following realization.) 

You are now conscious of the Indwelling God and 
the God in whom you dwell. You feel that to know 
Him is life eternal. You know that He is never-ending 
life and you know that you and your dear one are chil- 
dren of the Father ; therefore the life of both is eternal. 
God knows no death and with Him there is no separa- 
tion for "all are alive unto God," as Jesus said. You 
feel peace and quiet and calm. You rest in divine 
peace and quiet. (Now go on realizing the truth for 
"Peace," page 214, and, if the patient needs it, for 
"Sleep," page 215). Exercise deep faith, command 
the taut strings of mind and body to relax and men- 
tally order sleep to come. When it comes, use the 
realization of the presence, page 170, and then rest 
your mind in peace, or quietly leave your patient. 

For Nerve Troubles, Headaches, Neurasthenia, 
Indigestion, Etc. 

Nerve troubles are due to reaction from mental 
pressure of one kind or another. Many people feel 
hurried in their work even when no hurry is needed ; 
they work under pressure. Others think about one 
thing too long, constantly dwelling on one thought; 
"harping on one string," worrying over one thing. A 
severe shock to the physical system has often turned 
the attention of the mind to the body and brought on 
"nervousness." Fear can often be found as the first 
cause. Many people say "This noise, that person, 



What Kind of Cases to Be Treated. 211 

etc., get on my nerves," and then the sensitive system 
takes them at their word and they get discordant. 
Analyze the cause. Try it out before the court of 
reason. You are out of harmony with your world. 
You believe that "something is wrong somewhere." 
Stop thinking that. The way to get things right is 
to think right. Get into harmony with your world. 
Nerve trouble is due to inharmony and the way to be 
rid of it is to come once more into harmony. Make 
your union with men, environment, and God. If you 
are not right, get right. Get right mentally. If some 
one is out of harmony with you and that distresses you, 
make a statement that they are really at one with you 
for you both are one at the heart of the universe. 

Now take the realization for peace. Hold this truth 
in mind for a while and say "I am at one with all 
people and all things. I rest in the sure confidence 
that beneath me are the girders of the Almighty and 
underneath are the everlasting arms." 

If you need it, realize the truth for sleep. After 
a while you will feel these truths to be true and they 
will externalize for you the thing you desire. 

Conquering Fear, Doubt and Faultfinding. 

"He that overcometh shall inherit all things." 
I have the power of truth in me, therefore I will 
not make mistakes : I have the power of love in me, 
therefore I shall keep in harmony with all things and 
people ; I have the power of life in me, therefore I 
shall possess all health, today. I do now overcome all 



212 The Law of Mind in Action. 

tendency to doubt, to fear, to find fault, to fall into 
my old mistakes. I am master of my appetites, pas- 
sions, habits and, above all, my thoughts. I overcome 
all desire or interest in negative things and thoughts. 
Therefore Today I do inherit the kingdom of God — 
the kingdom of love, joy, and peace. Accordingly all 
things that are good are also mine and I am grateful 
to God for the beneficent law of life which gives me 
these things. I thank Thee, Father, for the'se things. 
Amen. 

Independence and Freedom. 

"Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." 
In me is the spirit of the Living God. The life I 
live is the life of the Spirit ; the love I feel and express 
is the love of the Spirit ; the wisdom I show is the wis- 
dom of the Spirit. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me 
and I feel His presence in and through me. The spirit 
of the Lord is everywhere and in everything and I 
cannot get out of it if I would ; I would not if I could. 
Therefore am I at one with It in spirit and in truth. 
I welcome the thought of God ; I meditate upon Thee, 
and am glad. There is nothing opposed to Thee, for 
Thou art all. There is nothing outside of Thee ; there 
is no place where Thou art not. Since Thou art per- 
fect freedom, I also am free. Since Thou art the limit- 
less, nothing can bind me. Where nothing binds, there 
is freedom. Since I am son of God there can be only 
limitless action for me. I am free. I have liberty. 
Nothing binds me but love and my own will. I am not 



What Kind of Cases to Be Treated. 213 

hampered by men's opinions or prejudices. I am not 
hampered by traditions. I am not bound by convoca- 
tions, creeds or confessions. I am bound only by 
the rectitude of my own heart. If the opinions and 
prejudices of men seek to bind me I will throw off the 
shackles and be free. I will not act thus and so be- 
cause other men so act, but because I wish to do as I 
will. If I do not wish, I do not act. My friends 
would not try to make me act contrary to my own inner 
feeling: others cannot. I act only on the impulse of 
my own soul, on my own initiative. I am an independ- 
ent spirit. I am an independent thinker. I am an in- 
dependent worshipper. I am my own standard and my 
own judge. I am conscious of the glorious freedom 
of a son of God. I am filled with happiness and joy, 
for I am master of my own fate and I carve out my 
own destiny. I Will Be What I Will to Be, by the 
Help of God. Amen. 

Faith and Trust in Spirit. 

"Commit thy ways unto the Lord, trust also in Him 
and He shall bring it to pass." 

I realize that it is not I that do the works but my 
Father dwelling in me. I realize that my power is not 
without but within. That my power is the power 
of the spirit. That all is spirit and therefore "all 
power is given unto me in heaven and on earth." I 
therefore commit my ways unto the one wisdom, and 
the one power — Spirit. I trust in the inner wisdom 
and guidance. I trust only in the way of Spirit. I 



214 The Law of Mind in Action, 



X 



seek no outside aids to Spirit and spiritual conscious- 
ness. The Spirit is creative and makes all things. It 
is wisdom and knows how. Therefore I commit my 
ways unto It that It may bring to pass. I commit 
my ways unto It by my thought since Spirit is Mind 
and acts by thought. I therefore perceive my good, 
and Spirit takes my thought and works upon it, while 
I sleep. I give my desire to Spirit and it goes on 
working for me ceaselessly. I wait and trust and 
receive. I rest in quiet confidence. My good is com- 
ing to me, for God is now on my side and working 
on my problem. For this I give thanks. 

Peace and Health. 

"O Lord, my God, I cried unto Thee and Thou hast 
healed me." 

I now assume toward God an attitude of expectant 
faith. I now look to the Law of Life for my deliver- 
ance. No longer do I depend upon material things but 
on the law of my own inner being. Today I make 
my unity with good, with God, and with the Law. 

I am at one with all the highest and best. I am at 
one with the universal laws. I am at one with all men 
in highest friendship. I am at peace with my world. 
I am free from sense of struggle. I am free from 
sense of irritation and fear. I know no friction in 
my life and today I refuse to see imperfection any- 
where. This is my cry unto God, I have closed my 
eyes to the darkness that I may see the light. I have 
closed my mind to evil that I may think only good. 



What Kind of Cases to Be Treated. 215 

I turn my back on poverty that I may perceive my 
supply. I recognize only the good, the beautiful and 
the true. Therefore have I cried unto thee, O Lord, 
and declared my faith in God and Good. Therefore 
am I sure of my healing. I am indeed made whole, 
for Thou hast already answered my prayer and because 
I have refused to recognize evil I have already found 
that there is nothing for me but good. I give Thee 
thanks for all things. So be it ! 

Sleep. 

"When thou liest down thou shalt not be afraid ; 
yea, thou shalt lie down and thy sleep shall be sweet." 

I rest in perfect confidence in God. Nothing can 
come to me but good for God is good and where He 
is there can be no danger or harm. I do not fear to- 
day because I trust in the protecting power of Divine 
Love and Wisdom. I will not indulge my subtle fears 
or misgivings. I will not allow fearful thoughts to 
come to me. I have set my mind on high things. It 
is my will that my mind shall be stayed on the thoughts 
of faith and peace. Why should I be afraid when 
Thou keepest me. He that keepeth me neither slumbers 
nor sleeps. He gives his angels charge over me to 
keep me while I wake or sleep. Because I have set my 
love upon Him, He shall deliver me. I will not allow 
the old worries to vex rny mind. I will not allow 
myself to be disturbed by people or things. I will 
not be nervous or fearful. I will not because I can- 
not when my mind is stayed on Thee, O Lord, my 



216 The Law of Mind in Action. 

Light and my Salvation. "The Lord is the strength of 
my life, of whom shall I be afraid?" I am afraid of 
nothing. I am full of peace. Thou restorest my soul. 
"Peace I leave with thee, my peace I give unto thee; 
not as the world giveth, give I unto thee. Let not 
your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." So 
do I rest in quiet trust and faith all day, and because 
my mind is at peace all day, it is also at rest and at 
peace at night. I give thanks for the love and watchful 
care that Divine Love keeps over me. 

Prosperity. 

"With God all things are possible." 

I depend on no less a supply than the Infinite. Here 
there is no limitation. There are no conditions. There 
are no qualifications. All things are possible. I am 
a child of God and share His nature and resources. 
Therefore all things are possible to me. I accept 
therefore no less than the best and the most that I 
need and desire. v I do not fear lack or limitation. God 
can lift me out of all my difficulties, and He does so 
lift me today. I shall pass through all my present 
problems into the sure solution through the Divine 
Wisdom and Supply. I go my way today in perfect 
peace and satisfaction because Thou art with me and 
for me. I give Thee thanks, My Father. 

For Those in Trouble. 

"He leadeth me beside the still waters." 

I rest in a new calm and peace today because He 



What Kind of Cases to Be Treated. 217 

leadeth me. My troubled soul is still. My fears are 
gone. The vexing problems of life are forgotten. I 
am entered into the secret place of the Most High. I 
am at peace and at rest, today. I go my way with an 
untroubled spirit. "Thou wilt keep him in perfect 
peace whose mind is stayed on Thee." The things 
that have been troubling me are now passed away for 
I feel the greater interest in the finer things of Spirit. 
What evil can come to the heart that is at peace with 
Thee? I fear no evil, for Thou art with me. Yea, 
though I pass through the valley of the shadow Thou 
art with me. Eternal life is my portion. S . The broken 
threads shall yet be woven together.. My problems 
shall yet find their solution. ^ I shall again see my dear 
ones. I can wait and I can trust and I can rest in 
Spirit. This pain, this grief, this problem shall pass 
away and I shall find my peace. % So I find it today, 
since God is the same yesterday, today and forever. 
I enter the timeless chambers of my soul. I meet 
with Spirit. I talk with God. I am in the throne 
room of Spirit and I am satisfied. Father, into Thy 
hands I commend my Spirit. There I rest today in 
quiet peace. Amen. 

Wisdom and Illumination. 

"Then shall thy light break forth as the morning 
and thine health shall spring forth speedily." 

There is a light of understanding within me which 
is capable of interpreting all things. This light is the 
Wisdom of God in my own soul. It is God's revela- 



218 The Law of Mind in Action. 

tion of Himself to me. I am more and more conscious 
of this inner wisdom and its power. Open my eyes, 

God, that newer and greater visions may appear, 
that I may ever grow in my capacity to think, act, 
and speak only those things that are real and true. My 
vision is growing brighter day by day. Therefore I 
am led to act more wisely. I am acting more and 
more in line with the creative will ; therefore I am in 
harmony with the laws of the universe and they are in 
harmony with me. Accordingly health springs forth 
from my inner being. I keep the law and the law 
keeps me^ Health wells up within me as from hidden 
springs. Life fills me to overflowing. Joy thrills 
through my soul today, for I have made my at-one- 
ment with the life of the Universe, and the Father and 

1 are one. I give thanl-s for the unspeakable gift of 
spiritual understan 1 ing. 

Prosperity. 

"In the days of prosperity, be joyful." 
I will not forget to give thanks -or my prosperity. 
Therefore I will give thanks now, for All Supply is 
mine now and the wealth of the world is at the 
command of my faith. . "Before they call, I will 
answer them," therefore the good I seek is mine now. 
"When ye pray, believe ye have received and ye shall 
receive." I believe that in the realm of spirit where 
all things first exist as thought, my good has already 
been born and has begun to grow for me. Therefore 
I believe that in the Divine Mind I have already re- 



What Kind of Cases to Be Treated. 219 

ceived. Accordingly I know that I shall receive in 
an objective way, since every thought must pass out 
into form. I can and do give thanks in this confidence. 
Therefore I am filled with joy now in my prosperity. 
I am filled with great joy, for I not only have the 
prosperity I seek, but I have that greater thing — the 
power to conceive and the power to accept a larger 
measure of good from the Giver of every good and 
perfect gift. I rest in divine satisfaction and infinite 
peace. I render thanks for the light, the life and the 
supply that are mine. 

Forgiveness and Healing. 

"Who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all 
thy disease." 

Today I am conscious of tht fore iving love of Spirit. 
God is my Father, full of infinite iove and tenderness. 
I therefore know that all my mf takes are not held in 
Divine Mind. I alone have not forgiven myself. I 
alone have indulged, the negative thought of weakness. 
God forgives air my mistakes and I will therefore 
forgive myself. If I have done ill to another, I will 
right it. I will be square with all men. I will over- 
come my fault. I will rise above my weakness. 
Therefore do I now forgive myself. I do not sym- 
pathize with myself or my fault, but I shall make it 
a thing of naught by rising so high in consciousness 
that this desire or temptation cannot again mar my 
joy in my own perfect selfhood. Therefore I am free 
from sense of guilt and fault. I rise to new heights. 



220 The Law of Mind in Action. 

I go on in a new and conscious freedom. I am full of 
joy and peace. Therefore I am made whole and my 
whole body is full of light and health. I am full of 
thanksgiving. 

Guidance in Affairs. 

I am now entered into the Mind that knows all. In 
the deep silence of my mind I am in touch with All- 
Wisdom. Here is where every thought begins. I am 
conscious that this Mind in me knows just what to do 
under these circumstances. While I, the objective 
mind, do not know just how to act yet this mind in me 
does know and knozvs now. I therefore charge you, 
my inner self, to choose out the best course for me to 
follow in this enterprise. You will then put it into the 
form of thought and thought in turn will become the 
act. I pass from the truth in mind, through the truth 
in thought, into the truth of right action. I now trust 
in the inner guidance of spirit. Let all my affairs be 
made smooth and harmonious. Let all my business 
arrangements fall into line with prosperity. Let me 
now act wisely. I now know that the thoughts that 
come to me along this line will be right and I shall 
do the right thing at the right time. I may not be con- 
scious at the time that I am acting under the guidance 
of my intuitions but I will so act. For I am now 
committing my ways unto the Lord— I am trusting in 
Him and He shall bring it to pass. 

All my affairs shall now go well. My business plans 
shall carry through. I shall succeed in this enterprise 



What Kind of Cases to Be Treated. 221 

and I shall not lose heart or courage. It is nozu done, 
already, in the Creative Mind. It is accomplished and 
I am glad to give thanks. 

Letting Down. 

To relieve the sense of tension and pressure, it is 
necessary to realize the three-fold basis of feeling. 
We perceive 

"Nor soul helps flesh more now 
Than flesh helps soul." 

The physical organism needs to be made quiet and 
reposeful. A good method to follow for those under 
special tension is to sit or lie down and begin the pro- 
cess of relaxation. Go to each part of your body in 
turn and give your orders. "Arm, relax ! Leg, relax ! 
Muscles of the throat, relax !" You will find that you 
have been under tension. Perhaps the shoulders or the 
back will be found bracing up against the weight of 
care. Or the abdomen has been held in and needs to be 
unchecked. Whatever it is, it will respond to your 
will, and even the involuntary muscles and nerves will 
respond to your orders. Rest and quiet will seize upon 
you, and you will feel singularly free. 

Now you must see to it that the moral feelings are 
under control. It is impossible to make your unity 
with the All-Good if you feel yourself to be wrong 
somewhere, and as this sense of unity is absolutely 
essential, you must seek to make yourself right in 
thought and act with others, yourself, and the Infinite 



222 The Law of Mind in Action. 

Law of Life. To have "clean hands and a pure heart," 
and "a conscience devoid of offense to God and man," 
is to find relief at once. Remember that the Law is 
not out of harmony with you but only you with it. 
''Before they call, I will answer them." Therefore 
forgive yourself for your mistakes, for you are a "son 
of man" and "the son of man hath power on earth to 
forgive sins." In treating others, mentally declare 
that their sins are forgiven and that thus there is no 
sense of separation from God in their minds. Jesus 
seems invariably to have forgiven sin before healing. 
"Son, thy sins are forgiven thee, now rise, take up thy 
bed and walk." 

Next you must unlimber the mind. It will be a sur- 
prise to you to find how much you have been worrying. 
You have been afraid of your work or the opinion of 
others. You have feared failure. You have wanted 
too much. Your mind has been at tension all the time. 
Day and night your tired brain has gone on toiling, 
puzzling, anticipating. You find it hard to give this 
all up. But it can be done. There are many ways. 
First of all, there is the determination to change, to 
have a new set of interests and stick to them. Con- 
version means a change of mind and the reason why 
religious experience, which we call a re-birth, is of 
value, is that the whole course of thought is changed. 
The interests of life are altered. The old is found dis- 
cordant, the new attractive. Turn your mind to con- 
sider what wonderful things growth and self-develop- 
ment are. "Desire earnestly the better things." 



What Kind of Cases to Be Treated. 223 

Forget your old worries and problems by engaging 
in new interests. Learn to take more concern for 
others. This will help. Get away from yourself. 
You are too important — to yourself ! You do not bulk 
so large as you think ! Be more modest. You are not 
Atlas carrying the world on your shoulders. Carry 
on a little argument -with yourself. "My work is 
getting on all right. I will forget it now. I will thus 
feel fresher for it tomorrow. Better things are 
coming. It will come out all right. The future has 
many wonderful things in store. Life is good. I am 
enjoying my rest or recreation now. I feel no resent- 
ment against anyone. I fear nothing nor anyone. I 
am carefree. I am bound to be happy — now." 

Burdens will slip the mind. Care will fly away as 
it should. A sense of lightness and of warmth will 
pervade the mind. 

Unleash the hounds of fear and worry and haste 
and let them go! Rather the simple, happy life of 
moderate circumstances than the warped and twisted 
threads of an unhappy and unhealthy life! 
********** 

Thus may the seeker for truth become the Great 
Finder, for he who seeks shall find ; he who knocks at 
the portal of Wisdom shall have it opened unto him, 
and this shall be the nature of his marvelous dis- 
covery j — "I and the Father Are One." To know 
that Spirit passes through us into expression, that 
creative energy is a servant waiting the command of 
thought, and that we are the thinkers of that thought, 



224 The Law of Mind in Action. 

is to give us a sense of power and mastery. The 
master key to life is Unity. All the ills of life are due 
to inharmony, inharmony is due to a sense of separa- 
tion and lack of unity. But when we have once 
more made our unity with All-Good we become bond- 
servants no more to the Law, but rather the Law 
becomes our servant while we pass into the glorious 
freedom of the sons of God. Receive therefore the 
Spirit of truth, rise to the conscious union wherein 
you may say, "I and the Father are one" and enter 
your kingdom in the conscious recognition of the 
"Christ in You, the hope of glory." 



MY GOOD-NIGHT PRAYER 



Now let me sleep. In peace I lay me down 

As draws the day to close: 
Good day or ill, no more it vexes thought 

Than when at morn I rose. 

Now on the breast of night once more I lie 

As when a child I lay 
Close in the warm embrace of mother-love, 

Worn with the hours of play. 

I rest and breathe a prayer to God tonight 

And feel His presence near, 
Whose power is great, Whose wings o'er- 
shadow me 

And guard my heart from fear. 

Dark though the night, I closer press to God ; 

He sees beyond the dark 
And knows the good that yonder lies for me — 

He hears the morning lark. 

So let me sink to rest in dreamless sleep — 

Flee, cares, to shadows dim ! — 
My soul shall find its peace in God and wake 

From sleep to joy in Him. 

F. L. H. 

225 



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